


Devil May Cry: Heaven's High Bower

by MightySSStrawberry



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Action, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Baby Nero (Devil May Cry), Blood, Blood and Violence, Brooding, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Conflict, Crying, Cute, Dark, Demons, Desperation, Devil Trigger (Devil May Cry), Difficult Pregnancy, Drama, Drama & Romance, During Canon, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Everything Hurts, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Falling In Love, Feels, First Kiss, First Love, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Kisses, Forehead Touching, Fortuna (Devil May Cry), Gentle Kissing, Gentle Sex, Gentleness, Good Writing, Goodbye Sex, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Happy Sex, Heartbreak, Holding Hands, Home, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Hurts So Good, Internal Conflict, Intimacy, Kissing, Lady in Red (Devil May Cry) - Freeform, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Love Confessions, Making Love, Morning Cuddles, Motherhood, Neck Kissing, Nero's Mother (Devil May Cry) - Freeform, Newborn Children, Not Happy, OTP Feels, Original Character is Nero's Mother (Devil May Cry), Original Character(s), Orphanage, Pain, Playful Sex, Poetry, Pre-Devil May Cry 3, Pre-Devil May Cry 4, Pregnancy, Protective, Protectiveness, Regretful Vergil (Devil May Cry), Rescue, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Sacrifice, Sad, Sad and Beautiful, Sad and Happy, Sad and Sweet, Sadstuck, Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Shyness, Slow Romance, Soft Vergil (Devil May Cry), Soulmates, Strength, Stubborn Vergil (Devil May Cry), Surprise Kissing, Suspense, Teen Pregnancy, Tension, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, True Love, Trust, Tsunderes, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vergil (Devil May Cry) feels human, Vergil (Devil May Cry) is blushy, Vergil (Devil May Cry) is shy, Vergil (Devil May Cry) is tsundere, Vergil (Devil May Cry)-centric, Vergil (Devil May May) Deserves Happiness, Violence, Vulnerability, Waiting, William Blake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23554231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightySSStrawberry/pseuds/MightySSStrawberry
Summary: This novella tells how Nero’s mother and Vergil met in Fortuna, fell in love, faced danger, protected each other, and parted ways before Vergil could know he was a father.EXCERPT:A lovely cerulean glow reached across the floor from between two bookcases, in the section dedicated to the history of the underworld and its beginnings.  The earliest recordings.  [Miranda] frowned.  Precious few could read such ancient scribblings.  The blue light drew her on.Another aged page of fragile parchment turned.She gathered a deep breath and stepped into the aisle, into the streak of the alluring azure glow.The man was tall and wore high leather boots.  His elegant three-tailed coat was of foreign fashion, a brilliant shade of cosmic blue edged in deep gold.  His hands were gentle with the book he perused, dressed in gloves that had seen hard abuse.  A katana hung at his side, its hilt adorned in white thread and shining gold.  A heavy frown was set upon his brow as he studied the book.  His hair was slicked back neatly, save for a short tendril or two that hung above his eyes.White hair.Recommended for ages 18+ for mature sexual content, some strong language, and childbirth gore
Relationships: Nero & Nero's Mother (Devil May Cry), Nero's Mother/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 166
Kudos: 170





	1. A Spark of Fate (Mission 1)

**Author's Note:**

> “The moon, like a flower,  
> In heaven’s high bower,  
> With silent delight  
> Sits and smiles on the night.”  
> — Night, William Blake  
>   
> After playing Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening and Devil May Cry 5 several times, analyzing Vergil’s character, actions, backstory, and dialogue, and watching interviews with Dan Southworth, nothing can change my mind: Vergil loved Nero’s mother.  
> Dan Southworth has said that he believes Nero's mother was “significant” to Vergil, according to who Vergil is. I agree with this, and it is the perspective from which I am writing.  
> Throughout all of my Devil May Cry writings, the name of Nero’s mother is Miranda. I chose an Italian/Latin name to follow the apparent theme of the descendants of Sparda. Rife with feels, romance, and Vergil’s inner war for power and his purposes behind it, _Heaven’s High Bower_ explores what Vergil’s relationship with Nero’s mother may have been like. It blends into the events of Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening. I have poured an extreme amount of dedication and detail into this novella. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> If you have not watched the opening cutscene of Vergil’s gameplay in Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition, it is strongly recommended that you do so before reading _Heaven’s High Bower_ so to provide a more solid foundation for this novella. However, if you’ve found this novella, then chances are high that it’s because you HAVE watched it and are curious about what happened next :3
> 
> A HUGE shoutout to my beta reader, Chiharu-chin! She has kept me motivated through all my DMC fan fiction writing and deserves more hugs than I could ever give! You rank SSS! :-D  
> Check out her DMC art on Instagram! It is marvelous!  
> Link here:  
> [Chiharu-Chin Art - Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/chiharu.chin/)
> 
> Tell me what your favorite moment in this piece was in the comments! I'd love to know!
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! *bows*
> 
> I am also a Devil May Cry 5 photographer!  
> Please check out my photos on Instagram -> [kazuhirakennedy](https://www.instagram.com/kazuhirakennedy/)

The last echo of the midnight bell fell over the cathedral, vanishing into shadow and silence. The hem of the lady’s vermillion gown rustled across the marble floor of the grand library. She walked in reverent quiet, her humble leather shoes barely tapping the holy stone upon which she tread. Moonlight spilled through stained glass like liquid rainbows, dancing as the autumn leaves drifted across the bright beams. The lady stopped at the foot of the towering statue. Fashioned out of black stone gathered out of the birthplace of their god, the hulking likeness of the legendary dark knight loomed above the thousands of tomes. His great horns gleamed in the moonlight. His massive sword, adorned in skulls and spikes, stood before him, balanced beneath his clawed hands.  


The lady knelt at his feet and gazed up into the face of the savior of mankind. She closed her eyes and let down her white hood. Her thick hair, long and dark and coiling, tumbled down her back. Alone and in silence, she prayed.  


Booted footsteps softly echoed.  


She turned over her shoulder, her heart aflutter. Tonight she was the sole attendant of this library. Every scroll and book had been entrusted to her during these quiet hours while knights stood watch outside the walls. Eighteen years was young, indeed, for such a guardian, yet her knowledge of demon-kind was unparalleled, naming her the primary steward of one of Fortuna’s most sacred libraries. Only she and a few others had been granted the title of Order Librarian.  


Who had breached this sacred space?  


Rising to her feet, she moved across the marble. The gentle turning of pages led her to the western quarter. Her breath hastened. Had a thief come into this midst? She could not allow the violation of any one revered document. This was a house of relics as much as a library.  


Her pace slowed in caution. A lovely cerulean glow reached across the floor from between two bookcases, in the section dedicated to the history of the underworld and its beginnings. The earliest recordings. She frowned. Precious few could read such ancient scribblings. The blue light drew her on.  


Another aged page of fragile parchment turned.  


She gathered a deep breath and stepped into the aisle, into the streak of the alluring azure glow.  


The man was tall and wore high leather boots. His elegant three-tailed coat was of foreign fashion, a brilliant shade of cosmic blue edged in deep gold. His hands were gentle with the book he perused, dressed in gloves that had seen hard abuse. A katana hung at his side, its hilt adorned in white thread and shining gold. A heavy frown was set upon his brow as he studied the book. His hair was slicked back neatly, save for a short tendril or two that hung above his eyes.  


White hair.  


Power radiated from him like heat waves, perilous and precise like a diving eagle, faint shimmers of the supernatural like a dream made manifest, and as deadly as a panther skulking shadows. Intrigued and determined, she spoke to the intruder.  


“Who are you?”  


The man stopped in mid-turn of a page. The air around them both stilled. The lady shivered. Everything about his aura demanded submission, exuded strength enough to raze a world to its knees, yet she did not cower.  


“Leave me to read,” he said, neither kindly nor rudely.  


“You are not permitted here,” she said, trying to ignore the growing tension.  


He replaced the book on the shelf. The long leather tassels of his katana swayed as he moved. The hilt caught a wink of moonlight. He chose a different book.  


“I must insist that you leave,” she said, hardening her voice.  


“This is a library, is it not?” he challenged. “Books are meant to be read, not hoarded in darkness.”  


“Only His Holiness may grant permission to read any of these texts,” she replied, and watched him turn another page. The fingers of his gloves had been cut away, a modern look that somehow did not clash with the elegance of the rest of his attire. Dried blood and grime stained his naked fingers.  


Without a word of warning, she stormed toward him.  


He finally turned to look at her, his eyes the only evidence of his surprise at her nerve.  


She seized the book from him. “Your hands are dirty,” she said, glaring up at him.  


His eyes were bluish-grey and so very deep. One might fall into that hard, wary gaze and swiftly drown in a confused mire of beauty and suffering. His hands remained open for a moment, deprived of the book, and then he closed them into fists, lowering them to his sides. His solemn expression resumed.  


“If you knew who I am, you would not be such a fool,” he told her, his voice low and smooth.  


“I asked you who you are but you didn’t answer,” she retorted. “Please leave.”  


He took one step toward her. Her heart leapt, but she did not recoil.  


For a fleeting second his brow released its frown as if he were impressed that she would stand her ground before him.  


“You’re not afraid?” he asked.  


“Should I be?” Her heart drummed harder. She pressed the book to her breast.  


The faintest flare of a smile touched one corner of his mouth.  


“I am one of the stewards of this library,” she told him. “I must ensure its security. Go now before I summon the guard.”  


He cocked one white eyebrow. His gaze briefly dipped to her hands, which trembled against the book she held.  


He studied her face for a lengthy moment, and then finally said, “Very well.”  


As he brushed past her, the hem of his coat hushed against the hem of her gown, touching her with the faintest breath of power.  


She followed him out of the aisle and watched him stride to the main doors. His every step was a challenge to those who might obstruct his path. Despite all the lethal power swirling around him, the lady in red was struck a fatal blow of curiosity in the white-haired stranger.  


Upon finishing her watchful hours in the library, she returned to her humble quarters in the women’s barracks, but sleep refused her. She lay wrapped in blankets, staring at the floor, ensnared. The meeting of the white-haired stranger haunted her. The power surrounding him felt similar to the power she felt while entranced in prayer.  


A wave of dizziness washed over her. The stranger’s power was the same as the savior’s.  


During the next few nights, she searched the library for him, her curiosity unabated. She did not find him, and she returned to her quarters disappointed. By the sixth night, her desire to find him began to deepen, eager to encounter that power and that striving spirit of tangled emotions and purpose.  


And those deep eyes, the faint grey of a gathering storm, the churning blue of a vast sea…  


She was unaccustomed to crossing paths with handsome men, and the white-haired stranger was no ordinary man. On the dawn of the seventh night of his absence, she stared out her window, captured in deep thought, clutching the cold blankets to her throat.  


Her mind refused to let him go.  


* * *  


An especially long hymn ended the day’s public prayers. The believers left the cathedral in thick droves, but their spirits were muted. Something evil stirred on the streets. More rogue demons had been sighted the previous night. People were frightened and stayed in their homes. The markets closed before sundown. Unusual, but understandable. Demons had not been sighted in Fortuna since Sparda took refuge in the castle. Had he returned? Or perhaps…?  


The lady in red slipped her hood over her dark hair. To display it unbound in public was considered scandalous. She moved with the crowd, disappearing in a sea of tension. A few shoulders jostled her. No one apologized. People moved about to return to their business for the day. She kept her head down.  


Then she felt it again.  


That brush of power.  


She turned in time to glimpse a tall man, hooded and cloaked, stride past her. Her heart scurried as she watched him meld again into the crowd, his head bent low. She caught a flash of rich cerulean peeking beneath the hem of his dull brown cloak. A secret smile flowered upon her lips.  


He was still in Fortuna.  


If she didn’t follow him now she may never slake the burning question eating a hole in her mind. So she pushed back toward the cathedral, her gaze never straying from the hood that hid snow-white hair.  


He led her to the outskirts of the city and into the mountainous region beyond. The late afternoon dissolved into dusk as he vanished into the dark of a crooked archway roughly cut out of the side of the mountain. She hesitated beneath the arch. The throaty hum of the wind carried through the craggy corridor. The stranger’s footsteps grew faint. She plunged ahead into the underground cold, keeping her distance, her steps delicate. A faint blue light guided her in the dark.  


Splashes of purple and orange painted the darkening sky as she emerged from the path less taken and Fortuna Castle emerged on the horizon. Long had she wondered in the private pocket of her heart what secrets it held, what traces of Sparda were there to uncover.  


Still maintaining a stealthy distance, she crossed the long stone bridge beneath the dying sun. The mysterious stranger never looked back. Neither did she. As he approached the colossal main doors, she stopped short, standing still, holding her breath, and waited for him to vanish inside.  


The door began to close.  


She slipped through in time.  


The Grand Hall soared. The stone surrounding her was cold and vigilant. The air was thin and crisp, hissing between the cracks of the aged walls like lost spirits. Her breath drifted from her lips in white puffs. Stepping further into the vastness of this untouched vault of untold history, she glanced about for the stranger. The silence hung so heavily, her every breath seemed a tolling bell.  


“Why have you followed me?”  


She gasped, glancing about, searching. He peered down at her from atop the huge chandelier, his face solemn. The dull cloak had been cast away. He stood perfectly straight, godlike in his severity and allure. In his left hand he grasped his katana, the sheath aglow in azure radiance.  


“Your power,” she called. “I recognize it.”  


“Impossible,” he retorted.  


“It is Sparda’s,” she continued. “How do you possess the savior’s power?”  


“My power is my own!” he declared, his words a hot slash through brittle ice. In a blur of dark blue he vanished, and then reappeared on the floor before her.  


She startled back. “Who are you!”  


He raised his katana in both hands, poised to release the blade. “Why did you follow me?”  


“I can feel Sparda’s power around you,” she explained in awe. “I want to understand.”  


The sheath flashed away. The lethal tip of the beautiful blade of hell-steel pointed at her heart. “I can slay you without a second thought.”  


“Yet you haven’t,” she challenged, defying her fear.  


A weighty pause passed.  


“You might be useful to me,” he replied flatly, “though you are merely _human_.”  


She raised an eyebrow at him and folded her arms against her chest. “Tell me who you are.”  


His eyes flicked to the blade and then back at her. His frown deepened. “You’re rather demanding.”  


“And so far you’re all talk,” she rebuffed, though the fear was coiling tighter around her heart.  


He chuckled, and then again he blurred out of sight. In a burst of blue heat he reappeared behind her.  


He stood close enough to stir her hair as he spoke. “I don’t trust you.”  


She drew a nervous breath. “What are you looking for?”  


“Power,” he replied through gritted teeth. His right hand opened before her. She glanced down into his gloved palm. A small spiral of her hair lay there, severed so swiftly she hadn’t felt the cut of his blade.  


A realization dawned upon her. “The demons roaming the streets… They’re fewer than before. You’re the one destroying them.”  


“Perhaps I am the one who unleashed them,” he suggested.  


She shook her head. “No. They’ve slaughtered so many of the Order's knights.” She took a breath for bravery and met his eyes. “If you truly unleashed them you would have killed me already.”  


He crinkled his nose in denial and snorted. “I have only one agenda.” He stepped away, turning his back to her, and sheathed the katana with a hypnotic flourish.  


The castle emptiness pressed in upon them both. The lady garbed in red scraped together every ribbon of courage, determined to leave with answers. She was more intrigued now than ever.  


“My name is Miranda,” she offered.  


He did not speak for a heavy moment, but finally, he said, “I’m searching for information.”  


“About what?” she asked.  


“Do not concern yourself with my business,” he snapped over his shoulder.  


She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t allow the Order to know you’re here. Otherwise you would not be speaking with me. You must remain covert. If I help you, you must help me.”  


He turned to face her again, his expression frustrated and insulted. “I don’t _need_ your help.”  


“You do if you don’t want His Holiness’s entire army converging upon you,” she told him, her own frustration growing. Such stubbornness!  


“What do you want?” he asked darkly.  


“Can you read the oldest recordings? The ones written in the tongue of the underworld?” Excitement blossomed in her breast.  


“I can,” he replied.  


“I will allow you into the library for your research in exchange for translating those writings,” she said.  


“ _Allow_ me?” He laughed again. It was a rich sound.  


“Or I will alert the Order of your presence in Fortuna,” she reminded him. “The research and development department would be very interested in studying your power.”  


“I can still kill you,” he threatened.  


Her stomach twisted. “Yes. You can.”  


He remained silent as he considered the deal. “Very well. Information for information. Easy enough.”  


“What is your name?” she tried again.  


“You don’t need my name,” he replied, and began to walk away.  


She took a few hurried steps after him. “I gave you mine.”  


“Trading names was not part of our agreement,” he argued, his stride unbroken.  


“Please.”  


He stopped. The softness in that single word strangely stirred him. It was not a desperate plea, but hopeful and generous without guile. He had not heard such gentleness in years. How long had it been? He swallowed. Hesitation such as this was for the weak. The connection made by revealing names was the mark of a beginning. He found himself wondering what kind of beginning this might be, and so…  


“Vergil.”


	2. Strange Discovery (Mission 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> “I can feel a demonic presence in you,” [Miranda] continued, “yet you aren’t like the monstrous things that have attacked the city recently.”  
> “Am I not?” [Vergil] asked in an icy tone, meeting her gaze again.  
> The library grew very still. Their gazes held one another. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to reveal it, but she heard a wisp of genuine uncertainty in his voice. He wondered if he was truly monstrous. Did he wish to be?  
> “No,” she told him gently at last, “you are not.”

Miranda waited anxiously in the northern quarter of the library. The bells had finished their midnight tolling, but her heart had not. Would Vergil come? Upon giving her his name at last, he had strode away without another word. The vast inner halls of Fortuna Castle had swallowed him, and she had been left alone with only the cold silence for company.  


The privilege to be in the presence of such remarkable power… Reverence flowered in her breast. She felt unworthy, and yet he had agreed. In hindsight she wondered if she had been more flippant than humble in her request. Her passion often translated as aggression.  


Then came the steady _thud_ of boots.  


Would he keep their agreement or had he decided to kill her after all?  


Was she such a fool to trust him? A deadly stranger?  


Hugging her arms around herself, she braced against his approach, praying for Sparda’s protection.  


Vergil came around the nearest pillar of books. Exuding power, he strode to her side, yet kept a respectful distance. His katana rode at his left hip. Dark splotches discolored his coat sleeves. Small splatters of demon gore.  


“Shall we begin?” he asked without any proper greeting. A few extra strands of white hair hung around his eyes.  


“Were you attacked?” Miranda asked, frowning.  


He ran his hand back through his hair, smoothing the stray bits. “I was inconvenienced.”  


His vanity was as tangible as his power. “We must wash before handling the texts.”  


He cocked an eyebrow.  


She gestured toward the towering monument of Sparda. “This way, please.”  


Beside the great edifice stood a marble basin. Miranda poured fresh water into it and rinsed her hands. The gentle splashes echoed. After drying her hands on a blessed cloth, she turned to Vergil to indicate the basin, but found him staring up into the black stone face of Sparda.  


There was a complicated snarl of heavy emotions carved into Vergil’s face. Determination. Anger. Regret. Motivation. He swallowed.  


“Are you all right?” she whispered.  


He spent another moment glaring up at Sparda’s likeness before he shifted his intense gaze to her.  


“Where are the records predating Sparda’s sealing of the underworld?” he asked.  


“I will guide you there once you’ve washed,” she answered.  


He joined her at the basin and was about to plunge his gloved hands into the water, but she swiftly reacted upon instinct, horrified.  


“Stop!” she said, and snatched him by the wrist.  


He too reacted upon instinct, easily breaking her hold and gripping her wrist, lashing like a snake. His hold on her was firm and bruising. She winced.  


“You must remove your gloves,” she explained, her voice trembling.  


His hand loosened, and then let her go. He then peeled away his gloves and laid them on the ledge of the basin. His long fingers bore many tiny scars, marks of many battles. Demon blood and muck fell away from his skin. As he washed, his face relaxed a little, as if the silky, cool water washed his spirit too.  


She gave him the blessed cloth. He dried his hands, and as he pulled on his gloves again his pensive frown returned. Clad again in severity and impenetrable tenacity.  


“Thank you,” she said, offering a nervous smile.  


He nodded once. “I am weary of waiting.”  


She sighed. Must he be so rude? “This way.”  


Miranda had prepared a long table and glass lamps for their research as well as several inkwells, a stack of blank parchment, and a kettle of tea and two cups.  


“We’ve only a few hours,” she told him. “The recorded history of the underworld can be found in these three aisles.” She indicated to her left with a sweep of her arm. “The texts I’d like translated are amongst them.”  


“I want everything you have on Sparda,” he said, entering one of the aisles. “From birth to death.” He perused a row of tomes at eye-level, glancing over the titles, his fingertips lightly brushing the spines.  


“All that we have on Sparda is here,” she assured him, spreading her hands toward either side of the aisle.  


She kept a watchful eye as he pulled and replaced various books. He was especially careful, treating every one like dried autumn leaves. He seemed more reverent of books than he was of religious etiquette. She began her search as well, working to decide which text she wanted translated first. With respectful quiet between them, Vergil and Miranda found several tomes of interest.  


With a stack at each of their elbows, they sat across from each other at the table an hour later. Vergil, maintaining his fierce frown, began reading, flipping pages now and then. Miranda poured hot tea for them. He accepted his tea with a nod.  


She waited ever so patiently, and after he had searched his third book and another hour had passed, she asked, “Will you translate this chapter for me?”  


Vergil looked up from his reading. “Perhaps tomorrow.”  


She lifted an eyebrow. “Tomorrow?”  


“It’s imperative that I find what I need as soon as possible,” he said.  


“We agreed to an even trade,” she reminded him tartly. “Information for information.”  


“And you shall have yours when I have mine,” he replied irritably.  


She leaned over and flattened the book in his hands down onto the table. “I won’t let you cheat me.”  


He rolled his eyes. It was subtle, but she caught it. “I will not cheat you. I will keep my word. I swear it.”  


“Swear on your power,” she insisted.  


He stared at her for an intense moment. Her heart skipped faster. “On my power I swear it.”  


Miranda let out a relieved sigh. Slowly she slid her hands away from his book. “How do you have this power?”  


“I told you. You don’t need details,” he replied, lifting the book to read again.  


“I can feel a demonic presence in you,” she continued, “yet you aren’t like the monstrous things that have attacked the city recently.”  


“Am I not?” he asked in an icy tone, meeting her gaze again.  


The library grew very still. Their gazes held one another. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to reveal it, but she heard a wisp of genuine uncertainty in his voice. He wondered if he was truly monstrous. Did he wish to be?  


“No,” she told him gently at last, “you are not.”  


He broke away from her gaze, flexed his shoulders, and closed his book. “One page.”  


She blinked, climbing out of the depth of his eyes. “What?”  


“I will translate one page for you before I take my leave,” he reiterated.  


She drew a steadying breath and nodded. “Thank you.” She hadn’t the clarity of mind to negotiate more pages.  


Unable to focus, she chose the first page of the book atop her stack, a book of Sparda’s earlier escapades. He took fresh parchment and an inkwell. He wrote in tall, skinny letters. She watched him as he worked. The glow of the lamp wavered across his cheek. A dab of light shone in his troubled eyes. Only the scratching of his quill and the eager beat of her heart filled the library.  


Suddenly, Vergil’s pen stopped mid-sentence.  


“What is it?” she asked. She hadn’t heard anything.  


His white brows pushed together. “Mundus had my father in chains?” he muttered, hardly louder than a breath.  


Her heart leaped into her throat.  


“Your…father?” she whispered, astonished.  


He dropped the pen. His jaw tightened. He stared at the words he had just written. Raking both hands through his hair, he declared in a deadly whisper, “I will defeat him.”  


Rising from his chair, he turned to go.  


“Wait!” she said, hurrying around the table. Without thinking, she reached for him and caught his arm.  


He whirled and threw her hand off. “You cannot understand!” His power surged in his anger.  


She dropped to her knees, weak with veneration. “You are the son of the legendary dark knight.”  


The vanity flooded into his aura. “I will surpass him.”  


“Nothing in this library tells of Sparda siring children,” she said, perplexed.  


“Of course not,” he retorted. His eyes wandered away, falling into thoughts of the past. “And yet Mundus found us anyway.”  


“Us?”  


He cleared his throat. “My father and I.”  


Curiosity bubbled uncontrollably within her. “And your mother—”  


“Do not speak of her!” he hissed. A cold, steely ferocity overcame him. He set a battle stance and his glare hardened.  


“Forgive me,” she uttered, bowing her head.  


He strode away. “I will return tomorrow night.”  


Miranda got to her feet. “Vergil?”  


He stopped.  


“You can trust me,” she said, sweet like honeysuckle in sunshine. Warm and true.  


“I don’t need to trust you,” he scoffed. “Trust is for the weak.”  


Miranda stood in the empty quiet, ruminating. His vanity cloaked his vulnerability. His frown concealed his fear.  


Vergil was not a monster. He was alone.

***

Vergil had forgotten what true kindness felt like, and it pulsed through Miranda’s aura like spiritual blood, healthy and strong. Yet he shrank away. He couldn’t trust anyone. He could only rely upon his own power. Everything else had failed him. He had to survive. He had to become stronger so that never again could he fall into the clutches of pain and weakness. Once he learned how his father had achieved strength enough to dethrone Mundus, Vergil would throw the demon emperor down once and for all. He would avenge his mother’s death.  


Power. That was all he had left.  


“Don’t chase that dragon, Verge,” his brother had warned him.  


Vergil shook away the words. While he was glad to have discovered that Dante had survived the fire that ended their carefree childhood, Vergil considered it a waste of time trying to explain anything to his foolish twin. Dante wouldn’t have listened even if Vergil had decided to attempt an explanation.  


Knowing Dante lived was enough. Vergil was free to concentrate on his crusade to surpass their mighty demon father. His little brother was all right on his own.  


He walked the empty halls of Fortuna Castle, deep into the night, pondering. The Yamato, ever at his side, was his only comfort.  


His thoughts strayed to Miranda again.  


Annoyed with himself, he hastened his stride. She was only a woman, merely another human. Yet she was perceptive. Perhaps _too_ perceptive.  


…the lush sway of her dark hair as she moved to take a book…  


He growled, frustrated, and stomped onward, breaching the chill autumn air of the courtyard. He shed his coat, letting it fall in a careless heap. Before it touched the cold ground, the Yamato sang out of its sheath. Vergil assumed a wide, low stance, raising his father’s gift to him. He danced with precision and unparalleled grace, moving through every combat pose, a fluid and unbroken form of deadly cuts and slashes.  


He was trying to distract himself.  


In the vicious blue sphere of his Judgment Cut, he caught wandering autumn leaves. He released the power of his attack. The leaves inside the sphere split into ten thousand pieces, vanishing as dust. Vergil, on one knee, gently slid the Yamato back into its sheath, its hilt at the level of his fierce eyes.  


Rising to his feet, he surveyed the castle surrounding him. What secrets had his father hid here? As he reached for his coat, a piercing cackle splintered the silence. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned wickedly.  


A dozen Death Scissors snapped their huge hellish blades, a pathetic attempt at taunting him.  


Forsaking his coat, Vergil flicked the Yamato loose again. Chin held high, his grin widened. He took a low, feline stance before them. The Yamato screamed out of its sheath, crying silvery-cerulean power.  


Chuckling, he said, “Scum.”  


Miranda could come under attack.  


The thought jarred him, nudging his mind out of the battle for a precious second. A giant, rusty blade raked across his back, his price to pay for his lack of focus.  


_Why does she haunt me like this?_  


Pouring rage into his demon, a hellish roar building in his throat, he let his devil loose and annihilated every Death Scissors in a single earth-rocking explosion of power.  


_I will not be stirred by a human! Pathetic!_


	3. Begging to Breathe (Mission 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love seeketh not itself to please..." - The Clod and the Pebble, William Blake

~ONE MONTH LATER~

It was the first time Vergil was late to the library. They had only a precious few hours before the entire Order was awake and alert. Miranda paced beneath the stained-glass windows, trying to distract herself with the heroic depictions of Sparda slaying his own kind. 

Vergil was Sparda’s son. 

It made perfect sense, considering the greatness of his power. 

Yet, there was something else in him, hidden and timid. 

“The Order has doubled the guard,” Vergil said. 

Having been lost in thought, she gasped in fright and spun around to face him. “Don’t do that!” she hissed. 

“We mustn’t waste time,” he said flatly. 

“ _I_ wasn’t late,” she replied, and then strode for their usual table. 

Vergil sat and reached first for blank parchment and ink. Miranda took her seat across from him. 

“You don’t want to research first?” she asked. Every night he had always begun his reading, and then when there was only a feeble hour left he spent it translating a few pages in silence. 

“I told you,” he replied, starting to write. “The number of guards has increased. My time in Fortuna is limited.” 

Her heart dropped into her stomach. “I’ve told no one about you. I swear.” 

His pen paused and he sighed. “Perhaps I should teach you how to translate, so that when I’m gone you can do it yourself.” 

Her heart jumped up again, dancing high in her breast. “You would do that?” 

“It’s fairly simple.” He shifted rather nervously in his chair. “You seem clever enough.” 

She abandoned her usual place and rounded the table. Without invitation she sat beside him. “Can we begin tonight?” 

His gaze flicked to her folded hands resting upon the table between them. Her skin looked soft like dove wings. For the faintest wink of a moment he thought he might… 

He cleared his throat and met her gaze, but that unexpectedly stirred him more. Her eyes were heterochromatic. The left was a deep dark pool of swirling chocolate. The right was creamy bronze caramel. Strong and sweet. Fierce and tender. A curious fusion. Rare. Beautiful. 

The tension in his shoulders lessened. The constant frown between his brows softened. It was a kind of…power. 

But she was only human. 

As had his mother been. 

“Vergil? Is something wrong?” Miranda asked, leaning a little closer to him. 

He leaned away from her, confused by the fascination she aroused in him. He scrambled to recover his stern demeanor. “The underworld has various dialects like countries in this world, but these texts use only one.” 

She nodded. “Were they written by the same author?” 

“Yes.” He ran his fingers over the open tome. His voice drifted as if in memory. “My father.” 

“Sparda,” she whispered. 

“I must become stronger than he ever was,” Vergil said. The hand upon the book formed into a resolute fist. 

“Why?” 

Such a simple question. Such a foolish question. 

“You cannot understand,” he said. 

“Maybe I can,” she replied. Her gentleness touched a long-forsaken piece of his battered soul. The piece that still remembered he was half human. He flinched at the feeling, as if a blade had pierced him. 

The pain remained, and in that brief flicker of weakness she saw it. 

“You can trust me,” she reminded him. Her voice was a comforting whisper, an offering of solace. 

That fragile fragment, his humanity that refused to die, begged to breathe again. 

He suddenly rose from the table. “I’m not getting any closer to what I need.” He disappeared into the aisle of books. Miranda followed him. 

“What exactly are you looking for?” she asked. 

He squatted down to peruse the books on the bottom shelf. “I need to know how my father—” He stopped. “You don’t need to know.” 

“You want to know how he died?” 

That was not what he had been about to say, but now that she spoke the question he did indeed wonder. Sparda had defeated Mundus after a struggle that lasted more than eight hundred years. After the fire that took his mother’s life, Vergil’s mostly-absent father also disappeared. Had he somehow cast off his power entirely and died as an old man? 

No. Vergil could never believe that of his legendary father. 

“Stop asking me questions,” Vergil growled, straightening. 

“They’re questions you ask yourself,” she called after him as he returned to their table. 

“I need to know more about my father’s war with Mundus. That’s all.” He sat down, heavy and annoyed, and opened a book he had yet to peruse. 

“Here.” Miranda poured him tea. “It will soothe the mind.” 

He ignored the tea for a while, but eventually indulged a sip. It was faintly sweet. Familiar. Years ago, his mother would give him tea after he and Dante had finished pummeling each other. It brought calm and healing. 

No. He would not cry for her. The night she perished in the flames was the last time he would ever cry. He had sworn an oath. Devils never cry. 

~ A FEW NIGHTS LATER ~ 

Miranda stood beneath the stained-glass, the place where she always waited for Vergil. A different kind of book was in her hands. 

“Did you find something?” Vergil asked as he joined her beneath a depiction of his father standing victorious in a battlefield of demon corpses. 

“I wanted to read something else tonight,” she replied, “but of course you are still welcome to your research.” 

“What is it?” he asked, pointing at her book. 

“Oh, it probably won’t interest you,” she said, blushing. “A silly thing.” 

He took the book by the top corner and turned it over to read the cover. His heart jolted. “You like William Blake?” 

She lowered her eyes, smiling shyly. “His words are so beautiful.” 

“Indeed they are,” he replied. His heart kept spinning. 

She looked up at him. Her full lips parted in awe. A drop of moonlight shone on them. “You like poetry?” 

“I like William Blake,” he said, his throat strangely dry. 

Her smile was so lovely, her cheeks so flush, her lips so pink, and her eyes so bright. 

Vergil’s ears burned. What form of power was this? 

“Which poem is your favorite?” she asked, excited like a child at a festival. 

“I could never decide,” he mumbled. 

“I have many favorites,” she giggled, her delight parading across her lips and in the moonlit spark that filled her eyes. “But my favorite quote is: ‘Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.’” 

Vergil gawked at her. Her gaze had wandered high, her voice caught in dreamy tones. He swallowed hard. Her sweet voice spoke every word so perfectly. 

Love was so dangerous, the risk so great. Powerfully beautiful. Powerfully torturous. 

_Foolishness! This isn’t love! This is pointless!_

The blush deepened in her fair cheeks. “I’m sorry. I get so excited sometimes. It’s easy to be carried away by Blake.” 

“‘Energy is an eternal delight,’” he quoted. A tiny smile slipped into his lips. 

Her smile, shy and pure and sweet, was in that moment as powerful as any strike of the Yamato, and it cut him deeply to his human heart. 

“I haven’t read any Blake for a very long time,” he said, peering at the page of poetry open in her hands. “It’s been years.” 

They stood so close beneath the colored moonlight. Suddenly the library was not so cold and empty. 

“Perhaps you should read some tonight,” she suggested. 

Their eyes met. 

He opened one hand, palm up, and asked, “May I?” 

She nodded, and eagerly relinquished the book. They sat together, side by side, at their table, research forgotten. Vergil’s smooth voice filled the library with the captivating words of a true artist. He let himself be carried on the power of Blake’s poetry, drifting weightlessly, without the burden of striving. After finishing _Auguries of Innocence_ , Miranda asked him to read _The Tyger_. Once he had finished it too, she asked for _Love and Harmony_. Without question, he read every poem she requested until at last the dawn bloomed. 

Vergil returned to Fortuna Castle, his heart aching for another night like this. An ache that was oh so human. 

The heat of his demonic power flared suddenly like a volcanic blast, so intense that the mirror in his bedchamber split ten thousand ways. 

_Feelings? For a woman? A human? Foolishness!_

He could not sleep. He walked the empty castle halls, confused and seething. 

An old memory, like a faded, rain-blotched painting, loomed: how tenderly his father had held his mother. A human with the power to awaken a demon’s heart to love.


	4. Curious Caress (Mission 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:  
> A whisper of wishful breath.  
> 

~ ONE MONTH LATER ~  


"Did you wash?” Miranda asked.  


Vergil rolled his eyes. “You know I do every night we meet. Why do you keep asking?”  


“Don’t be so annoyed,” she said, rolling her eyes right back at him. They had been meeting on most nights for weeks now. He knew the rule well indeed, but she always felt compelled to ask.  


“I’m responsible for the safety of every text within these walls.” She put her hands on her hips. Vergil’s eyes stole a glance at them. “The one time I don’t ask will be the night you forget.”  


“I understand,” Vergil said, crossing his arms. In truth, he admired her steadfast devotion and desire to preserve the precious knowledge housed therein. She was a guardian of sorts. A protector of books. He respected that. So much so that after the ritual washing he kept his gloves off, an unbidden gesture of deference he’d begun a week or two ago.  


Miranda’s lessons were going along smoothly. She proved far more clever than Vergil had originally surmised. Tonight she worked to translate an entire chapter. While her accuracy was better, he found himself motivated to push her potential.  


He watched her pen glide across the parchment. He had deliberately given her a more difficult text tonight, but she did not shy away from the challenge. She never gave up. Bending over the text, she effected her flowing script with nary a grumble. Her own motivation was incredibly strong.  


Vergil admired that too. Immensely.  


The faint smell of plumeria drifted around Miranda like a halo. Vergil’s heart had developed a bothersome habit of pattering under its influence.  


Only the scratch of her pen and the beat of his heart…  


The press of her teeth into the plumpness of her bottom lip…  


A tingling, peculiar warmth stole into Vergil’s blood. It was difficult to breathe. Candlelight upon her skin, her dark and moon-kissed hair…  


With one finger, Vergil stroked her idle hand. A curious caress.  


Suddenly her pen stopped. Their gazes touched.  


…and the fearless spirit in her golden-toffee eyes.  


Neither of them spoke a word. She did not appear afraid. It was almost as if she were waiting. For what? He swallowed. It felt like a cannonball rolling down his throat.  


A breath lifted her breast.  


A flash of fire ripped across Vergil’s face.  


Miranda turned her hand. Welcoming him?  


Vergil’s touch slid between her finger and thumb, brushing her palm. He felt her tremble.  


Blush splashed her cheeks like rosy wine. A whisper of wishful breath. Like a sparrow, her heart fluttered and sang inside her. The tenderness in his battle-scarred touch was a beautiful discovery.  


Scowling, Vergil recoiled from her, muttering, “I’m done for the night.” He stood to his feet and tried to shake off the heat churning in his blood. _Foolishness._ He strode for the door without looking back, his quick pace reflecting frustration. The touch of her skin ignited something he had never explored before. Something buried beneath years of survival.  


“Vergil?”  


With eagerness he looked back at her.  


Miranda held the Yamato to her breast, her hands tucked together beneath its hilt, cherishing it like the heirloom it was. With a shy smile she said, “You forgot something.”  


_I forgot…? What the hell is wrong with me!_ He stomped back to her, furious with himself, and anxious to have his father’s gift in his hands again. Miranda held the blade out to him, as reverent as a priestess. The Yamato did nothing to oppose her human touch. It was at peace in her gracious grasp.  


Vergil accepted it, his lips carrying a faint pout.  


“I’ve always been fascinated by devil arms,” she said, folding her hands beneath her chin. “I’ve studied everything we have on Machiavelli’s craftsmanship, but we don’t have much.”  


_She knows about Machiavelli too? This woman is so…_ Trying to sound indifferent, he said, “That might be a worthy topic for another night.”  


That charming enthusiasm sparkled in her eyes like starlight. “I’d enjoy that very much.”  


Vergil’s mouth flattened as that damned warmth rushed up the back of his neck. “It could be interesting.”  


Crystal chimes dwelt in her bashful laughter. “Rest well, Vergil.”  


He nodded. “Rest well, Miranda.”

~ ONE WEEK LATER ~

Miranda wasn’t there. He waited an hour, but she didn’t come. He paced beneath the lofty windows.  


Perhaps she had been forced to tell the Order about him. Had he been foolish to use her? If she proved a liability he may need to eliminate her. Such a thought upset his stomach.  


Another hour passed. He tried to accomplish some research alone, but his mind kept wandering back to Miranda. He slammed the book closed. _Blast!_ Concentration was impossible.  


Demons continued to plague Fortuna. Had Miranda been attacked?  


A sudden uprising of demonic power filled the room. Vergil warped to the center of the library, the Yamato held high and ready. His power surged, surrounding him in blue flame. His devil growled for release as a horde of demons rose out of the floor all around him.  


Death Scissors shrieked. Muscular Furies roared. Bloated impusas hissed and scurried.  


_If anything has harmed Miranda…_  


Vergil triggered his devil, violent rage consuming him.  


_She’s only a human!_ He let his demon loose and wreaked havoc.  


The Yamato spilled blood and severed bone. Vergil summoned a storm of glowing blue swords. The azure blades rained down upon his enemies. A chorus of death cries rose up like a crashing sea. Roaring, Vergil flashed across the distance, slaying all. The Yamato rendered them to smoke and dust. The dying shrieks of pathetic beasts echoed through the library.  


As the reek of hellish smoke dissipated, Vergil stood again as a human. Thick streams of demon blood dripped from the Yamato’s edge, hissing wet and hot onto the floor.  


_Miranda…_  


Two hours until dawn. Where was she?  


_She means nothing to me! She’s just a means to an end!_  


He scoured the cathedral, avoiding detection. The guards were busy eliminating demons, which allowed him to infiltrate other chambers more easily. If he had to search every room, so be it. Hordes of hellish chaos converged upon the cathedral. Were they drawn to Vergil’s presence? He cut down every demon in his path.  


He had only half an hour until dawn, and still he had not found Miranda.  


As the sun climbed into the sky, the number of guards redoubled. Vergil could not remain a minute longer lest he be exposed and his mission become more complicated. He had no choice but to return to Fortuna Castle.  


Upon returning to his father’s erstwhile home, Vergil ambled into the courtyard, distracted by the possibility that Miranda was in peril. In the stillness of the castle, alone with his conflicting thoughts, he allowed himself to wonder. Was this what his father had felt when he met his mother?  


He glanced down at his right hand, the hand that had touched Miranda’s.  


What was the point? He would be gone from Fortuna soon.  


Yet the power of Miranda’s spirit penetrated the barrier he had built around himself since childhood. Was it worth the leap? Did he not deserve relief from the agony, the isolation? No, he didn’t need relief. He needed _power_. Might controlled everything. Without strength, he could protect nothing. Let alone himself. All else had failed him.  


Now in his soul he found the desire to protect _her_ , and with that desire came fear. The fear of losing her.  


_Where is she?_  


“Vergil?”  


He whirled around. There at the end of the hall, she stood panting, terrified and desperate. Black smudges stained her rose-red dress. 

The scent of plumeria was tainted by the reek of car oil and the smoke of burning stone. Her hood was gone and her hair disheveled. 

Tears glistened in her eyes.  


He warped to her side.  


Her tears fell. Her lovely lips trembled. She hugged her arms around herself and shivered.  


“What happened?” His anger burned against whatever had assailed her.  


“There were so many,” she whimpered, struggling through the fear. “I couldn’t reach the library. I fled. Demons killed so many knights.”  


His hand moved to comfort her, like a reflex, but instead he raked it shaking through his hair. Glowering seemed to help crush the concern in his voice. “Are you hurt?”  


She shook her head. “Not terribly.”  


He studied her face. The subservient dross of hell terrified her and yet she found refuge with him. Half of him was a demon, the half he fed to dominate his humanity. Yet she woke complicated feelings in him and had come to him for sanctuary.  


Did she perhaps see his demon only as his power, not who he truly was?  


“You’re not afraid of me?” He was unsure of which answer he wanted.  


“No,” she replied, puzzled. “Aren’t we friends?”  


_Friends?_ “Never mind,” he muttered. “Just follow me.”  


He led her to a guest room not far from the Master’s Chamber where Vergil slept. He poured fresh water into a basin and found a clean towel for her. “You may rest here awhile.”  


“Thank you,” she said, joining him.  


He leaned against the wall as she washed, stiff and befuddled, his arms folded across his chest. He stole a few glances at her as she carefully rinsed the dirt from her face. A bright bleeding cut ran along her jaw.  


“You said you weren’t hurt,” he said.  


“I said not terribly,” she replied.  


He pointed at her face. “What did that?”  


“I don’t remember,” she said, looking into the cracked mirror. With a wet corner of the towel she dabbed the cut, and winced. “I was so afraid.”  


“You’re safe here,” Vergil told her. “I promise.”  


The frown upon his brow was ever fierce, but kindness resided behind it. In the mirror she gave him a fragile little smile. “Thank you, Vergil.”  


A cloud of crimson spread across his face. He scowled at her and snapped, “It’s nothing.”  


Her smile grew. He was a teenage boy somewhere in his heart despite his efforts to act otherwise.  


“You should stay here until the demon attack is under control,” he said. “After all, you’re my key to that library, and my research isn’t done.” He strode away.  


_I wonder how long he will stay?_ She hurried after him. “Wait.”  


He stopped in the doorway.  


“Does the castle have a library?” she asked.  


“Yes, but there isn’t much of interest,” he replied.  


“Will you show me?”  


It was becoming difficult to refuse her and her fiery obsession with books. So like himself. “Very well.”  


The library was not nearly as vast as the one in the cathedral, and most of the shelves were crammed with outdated information. Vergil and Miranda wandered the chamber together, picking through the tomes for any treasures.  


“Any poetry?” she asked him.  


“No, just inventory and old security records, mostly,” he replied, sliding a book from a shelf. He blew dust off of it and coughed, waving away the dirty puff.  


As she gingerly flipped through a battered book bound in patchy leather, a few loose leaves of yellowed parchment caught Miranda’s eye. Upon blowing away the dust, she found what appeared to be journal entries. They were written in human lettering.  


She read them.  


“What is that?” Vergil asked.  


She did not answer for a few moments, entranced by the pages. Finally she looked at him and said in awe, “These belonged to your father.”  


Vergil frowned and held out a hand. “Give them to me.”  


She offered him the brittle fragments from long ago. “He writes of a woman named Eva.”  


He quickly read over the first page. A muscle in Vergil’s jaw twitched. He saw in Miranda’s eyes that she had already discerned who Eva was. It was not difficult to come to the right conclusion.  


“Sparda loved her. Passionately.” She drew a sigh. “A demon who fell in love with a human.”  


_My human mother…_  


Vergil clenched his jaw and tossed the pages onto a shelf. “Yet I barely knew my father.”  


“It pained him to be apart from her,” she went on, enthralled by Sparda’s words of longing and loneliness, “but he did it to protect her.”  


Miranda touched Vergil’s shoulder.  


He flinched, turning away from her. That baffling heat exploded again under his skin. “I’ll escort you back to the cathedral after you’ve taken some rest.” He then marched out the door, the tassels of the Yamato swinging wide like whips.  


As he walked the empty corridors alone, his fist tightened on the Yamato while his devil tried to smother these rising feelings.  


“Pathetic,” he growled through gritted teeth.  


His mission was nearly complete. He had found the book he needed. All that remained was deciphering the spells, which were more complex than he had anticipated.  


No matter. Temen-ni-gru would rise again and the full demonic might of his father would soon be his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Machiavelli was once a famous gunsmith in the Underworld, known for creating the weapons Artemis, Pandora, and the Angelo armors for Mundus. After his death, many demons sought out his creations. (Source: Devil May Cry Wiki)


	5. Mysterious Power (Mission 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:  
> [Vergil] let out a groan of vexation. _Foolish woman!_ How did she draw out his suppressed feelings?  
> “You don’t have to be alone,” [Miranda] said, her words softer, like drops of warm cream.  
> “It’s best that I am alone,” he replied.  
> She just looked at him, her enthralling eyes full of sadness. For him.  
> 

~ A FEW DAYS LATER ~

Sunset. It was a sweltering summer evening. Miranda, hooded and cloaked for the sake of anonymity, moved beneath the dying light of dusk across the ancient bridge to Fortuna Castle. The basket on her arm held fresh provisions. It was holiday in Fortuna, so she had told Vergil she would be relieved from her scheduled library duties that night. She worried about him. The castle was little more than a tomb, beautiful yet empty.  


Upon arriving at Fortuna Castle, she let down her hood and went in search of Vergil. He was not expecting her tonight. After searching the Grand Hall, library, and courtyard, she went to the door of the Master’s Chamber. Finding it ajar, she peered in.  


The chamber was easily one of the largest in the entire castle, extravagantly furnished in statuesque, wooden pieces from a bygone flamboyant age. Vergil did not seem the sort to care much for such transient trappings.  


The chamber was as quiet as death save for a gentle rhythmic hush of air.  


Vergil snored. Not loudly, but rather child-like. In the way children were innocent and untainted by the darkness of the world. He lay on his belly, his lips parted and hair mussed. His bare arms, handsomely muscled, hugged the pillow beneath his cheek.  


Miranda blushed, bit her lip, and turned away. His coat, vest, and pants hung over the back of a chair. Wisely, she decided to leave his pants, but took his vest and coat. It all needed a good and thorough washing. Dark demon blood blotched his coat and her nose wrinkled at a whiff of his sweat-stained vest.  


Had he nothing else to wear?  


Vergil stirred. Even in sleep he frowned. His hand lay outstretched on the bed, toward her, easy enough to reach. Miranda gently slid her hand under his, hoping to soothe his troubled expression.  


His fingers closed around hers and the sleepy scowl faded.  


Miranda smiled. His long fingers were strong, and yet in tenderness held hers. There was indeed a sweetness in him, but buried beneath so much sorrow and fear.  


She gathered his dirty coat and marred vest and left him to sleep.  


The heat had soaked into the castle, making it an oven, and she could bear it no longer. After removing her hood and cloak, she loosened the laces across her bosom to cool off and breathe easier. As Vergil’s coat soaked in a wooden tub of frothy soapy water, she arranged the provisions she had brought on the counter in the kitchen. Bread baked just that morning, rich with rosemary and thyme. Fruit newly imported yesterday, meticulously preserved. A jar of blueberry jam and a precious vial of butter. Brined fish and a cask of golden wine.  


Once she’d arranged everything, she rinsed and wrung out his coat, smoothing it carefully before hanging it to dry on an old pole used for drying herbs. With great care, she oiled his sleeveless vest with a special vanilla concoction she’d purchased in town. The stylish leatherwork was extraordinary.  


_I hope he likes the scent of vanilla._ It filled the kitchen, cozy and comforting.  


Once the oiling was finished, she went to the guest chamber Vergil had given her and succumbed to her exhaustion, lines of Blake ushering her into a healing slumber.

***

Vergil woke and rubbed the sleep from his face. As he reached for his pants he noticed the absence of his coat and vest. Scowling, he dressed and snatched up the Yamato, intent upon investigating the mysterious theft.  


The demon power in his blood kept the heat of the castle bearable. As he ventured further through the corridor his keen senses caught the scent of vanilla. Curious, he made his way into the kitchen, his bare feet silent on the marble floor.  


Upon the counter were three loaves of bread, fruit, fish and wine. The mingling of savory and sweet in the air brought comfort. It was the fragrance of safety and home. From the cornucopia before him, Vergil chose a firm, rosy-pink apple. Its aroma reminded him of his mother’s gardens. He took a bite. Crisp and pleasant. The vanilla surrounding him drew his eye to his vest, and then his clean coat.  


_Did she do all this?_  


His heart cantered faster.  


He strode for the chamber he’d given her and found Miranda asleep. Her long dark hair spilled over the edge of the bed and her lips were slightly parted. Vergil’s eye followed the rise and fall of the exquisite curve of her hip and thigh. The lovely little sound of her tranquil breath….  


Was it perverse to take delight in her beauty without her consent? Why did Miranda mesmerize him? Why does a garden, lush and alive, enthrall the senses? Petals and colors and the fragrance of serenity…  


_A heaven in a wildflower…_  


The laces of her bodice were loose.  


He swallowed a clod of urges, and then cleared his throat. His grip on the Yamato tightened while certain muscles elsewhere stiffened. He stood there stupefied, his heart thrashing around inside him like a cloud of bats at high noon.  


Miranda stirred and made a soft moan.  


Vergil turned to leave, but smacked his head on the doorframe.  


“Blast!” he grumbled, rubbing at his forehead.  


“Vergil?”  


He froze. Had she seen his clumsiness?  


“Are you all right?” she asked, sitting up. She looked at him with such gorgeous eyes and her full pink lips spoke so sweetly.  


The loose laces did not scream immodesty, but if she didn’t tie them posthaste the wave of blush would surely slay him one way or another, either slamming all his blood to his brain or his—  


Unable to think clearly, he let his gaze dip down. She suddenly seemed to remember why, and gave a small embarrassed gasp. They both turned away from one another, blushing bright. With trembling fingers, Miranda tightened her bodice.  


“Why are you here?” he asked, deepening his pout in an attempt to surmount his body’s physical reactions to her.  


She turned to him again, replying, “I thought…” Her gaze wandered his half-naked body. Battle-sculpted chest. Defined ridges of his abdomen. Biceps hard and toned. Such wide, strong shoulders. Stark lines marked the muscle around his narrow hips.  


Pinker than peonies, they were rendered speechless. Vergil ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. Miranda’s eyes fell to the floor as she fidgeted with those damned laces.  


After a painfully awkward slice of silence, Miranda asked, “Are you hungry?”  


His ears were flaring embers. Hungry…? “My power is enough to sustain me,” he mumbled. He thought of the apple. His stomach groaned.  


“You must eat sometimes,” she said, standing to her feet. Her legs felt weak. “You’re still human.”  


Human. The plumeria had overcome the vanilla. Desire seized him below his hips. Ashamed, he whirled around. “You needn’t concern yourself.”  


“When did you last eat?” she asked, drawing closer.  


He scowled at her over his shoulder. “Why does it matter to you?”  


She reached out in boldness and grasped his arm. Something like a bolt of lightning raced through his being, illuminating the darkest places. The glower retreated and he fell into the coffee and caramel of her compassionate eyes.  


“Because maybe the reason why you’re so cranky is because you’re hungry,” she said, smiling.  


His frown returned in full force. Blasted demons below, it was a war of tooth and nail not to flagrantly admire her ample beauty below her collarbones.  


“If you keep scowling like that you’ll give yourself wrinkles,” she teased.  


He wrinkled his nose as if to prove her wrong. “Stop pestering me.” His face was an inferno. His blood crashed hard and fast.  


“Pestering you?” she echoed, letting go of him. “I just wanted to bring you something to eat.”  


The hurt in her voice impaled him like a javelin of ice. “Why?”  


She let out a nervous laugh. “You’re alone here, and I’ve never seen you eat, so…”  


He looked away, regretting his discourtesy. He wanted her to touch him again.  


“When was the last time someone cared about your wellbeing?” she asked.  


A trembling ache rippled through him, warm and unique. His human half cried for kindness. _I don’t need kindness!_ This war within him was so exhausting. “My wellbeing is my own concern.”  


He read sympathy in her eyes. “Vergil,” she uttered. “What happened to you that you feel you must be so distant?”  


Vivid memories of his childhood home, swallowed by demonic flames, arose to torture him. He had been so happy, playing alone and in peace, away from his annoying brother for once. The hateful light of the consuming fire in the distance had caught his eye. He had tried to run. He had screamed for his mother, but no one came for him. After the flames came the pounding rain and a world of darkness and loneliness. He had only his demon to sustain him. For ten long years.  


“You don’t need to—”  


“‘Know the details?’” she said with a drop of frustration. “Vergil, I’m trying to be your friend.” Her hand found his. “Please let me.”  


He could not banish the blush no matter how hard he scowled or denied the surge of pleasure her touch awoke. Their naked hands fit snugly together.  


“You should go back to the cathedral,” he muttered, and walked away from the touch he wished for.  


They walked side by side, saying nothing. As they approached the huge doors to leave the castle, Vergil suddenly stopped. His gloveless hands went to the Yamato.  


“Vergil?” Miranda uttered, nervous.  


Pools of demonic sludge gurgled and spread in a wide arc across the floor of the Grand Hall. Hellish shrieks split the silence into jagged pieces.  


Vergil crouched low, slid the Yamato free, and focused his power. Dark cerulean light spread out in a perfect sphere, surrounding the coming horde.  


“Miranda,” he said, his human voice layered in a devilish growl, “stand aside.”  


In the instant she was safely guarded behind a pillar, Vergil released the sphere of power. Like a shattered bomb it exploded, shaking the entire castle. Every demon was knocked back, blood splattering the walls, a million slashes delivered at once.  


Another wave rose out of the floor.  


Demonic flesh split open at the touch of the Yamato. With every slain demon, another rose to take its place. The light of Vergil’s phantom blades brightened the dim castle, almost blinding.  


Miranda peered around the pillar. Fear and awe overcame her. With hardly a grimace, Vergil destroyed the spawn of the underworld. A grin played upon his mouth. Reveling in his power, he eliminated the evil as it foolishly attempted to subdue him.  
The swarm grew. The hall filled with blades and screams, blood and chaos.  


Vergil was surrounded.  


In the moment she feared he might be ensnared, a massive explosion rocked the castle, bright and blue and unstoppable. A mighty battle cry erupted. The light blew back the hordes, and when it faded, a demon clothed in shades of majestic blue stood in Vergil’s place. Two great cylindrical horns crowned his fanged face. His hands and feet boasted iron-black claws, and his skin was arrayed in dark cobalt scales. Roaring, he tore through his adversaries, the Yamato slicing so fast no human eye could ever follow.  


Caught between human and devil, Vergil chose to destroy evil.  


His demon form shook Miranda to her core, horrifying and magnificent.  


Demons rose out of the floor around her.  


As they rushed for her, jagged blades aloft, she gathered a breath and screamed—  


That battle cry roared again as Vergil sped to her aid, snagging all six demons in a single lethal cloud of slashes. The demons fell into pieces around her. Black blood splattered her face.  


Vergil stood with his scaly back to her, power pulsing around his edges, the Yamato low and outstretched at his side. He breathed deep, rumbling like a beast.  


He dismissed his demon, now satisfied, and asked over his shoulder, “Are you all right?”  


She could only nod her head in answer.  


“Perhaps it isn’t safe to return yet,” he said, and then strode for the nearest hallway.  


Panting and shaken, Miranda hurried for the main doors.  


Vergil heard the loud groan of one of them. He bolted for her and shoved the door closed again.  


“Let me go!” she cried.  


“Don’t be a fool!” he shouted.  


Frightened tears trailed down her cheeks. “I don’t understand.”  


“Understand what?” he growled, confused  


“You keep rejecting me as a friend, so why bother saving me? I mean nothing to you!”  


_Nothing?_ Yes, he had told himself that, hadn’t he? At the sound of her scream, the only thing in the world that mattered to him was saving her. He opened his mouth to answer, but the words weren’t there.  


“What do you really want, Vergil?” she asked.  


How did she cut into him so deeply?  


He clenched his jaw, and then replied, “I need more power.”  


“No, you don’t!” she pleaded.  


“You know nothing!” he snapped.  


“I know you’re alone!” she cried.  


His anger stirred violently inside him, his devil resisting her reasoning. Drowning in denial, he blurted, “I will never be forsaken again!”  


Silence fell between them and she began to understand. “Forsaken?”  


He let out a groan of vexation. Foolish woman! How did she draw out his suppressed feelings?  


“You don’t have to be alone,” she said, her words softer, like drops of warm cream.  


“It’s best that I am alone,” he replied.  


She just looked at him, her enthralling eyes full of sadness. For him.  


“I will not be pitied!” he rumbled.  


She caught a breath and turned away. Vergil suddenly wanted her to look at him again.  


“Very well,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll go back to the cathedral.”  


Vergil felt a strange ache in his chest. To see her face so fallen from her usual bright expression pained him. “It isn’t safe—”  


“The Order will notice my absence,” she snapped, tart. “You don’t want them to become suspicious, right?”  


Bewildered, all he managed was, “Yes, but—”  


She pushed past him and yanked open one of the main doors.  


“Miranda…”  


Without looking back at him, she hurried down the huge steps and across the stone bridge. Vergil watched her disappear into the distance, his heart falling into the abyss of his knotted gut.

***

The night was warm and still. A light summer rain began to fall as Miranda arrived at the library. By the time she was amongst the books again, her heart was in throbbing pain and tears stung her eyes. Alone in the shadows, she dropped to her knees before the statue of Vergil’s father and wept.

***

Dressed in his clean coat and oiled vest, Vergil watched Miranda work for a time. Her long hair fell over one shoulder as she crouched down to slide books into place, and then she tossed it back. She stood on tiptoe to clean dust away from higher shelves. His gaze traveled down the length of her hair and lingered a moment or two on her hips…  


He swallowed, shifting nervously. His palms sweated and his ears burned.  


Miranda, occupied by her feelings, did not notice him. His stomach twisted each time she wiped away a tear.  


Vergil picked up a book and came around the corner of a bookcase.  


She gasped. They looked at one another for an uncertain moment. Quickly she wiped another tear away. She said nothing. He only nodded.  


Once all the books had been arranged, Vergil and Miranda stood a little apart from each other beneath the stained glass once more, yet again caught in midnight beams of moonlight. The distance between them felt wrong. Vergil leafed through a thin journal, pretending to be interested in it, but stole glances at Miranda. Her gaze wandered the colored glass illustrating Sparda in his mighty demonic strength. She reflected upon the power she had seen Vergil wield. Shivers raced under her skin. Terrible, devastating, beautiful power.  


“I’m sorry my demonic form frightened you,” he said, shy and quiet.  


She shook her head. “You saved my life,” she muttered, unable to look at him. “Thank you.”  


“It was—” He almost said “nothing” out of habit, but instead decided to say, “You’re welcome.” He was unused to being thanked. Had anyone thanked him before he’d met her?  


She folded her arms beneath her breasts and sighed. Vergil found it distracting. Heat bloomed up his neck again. He snapped the journal closed.  


“Do you really want to be alone?” she asked, almost a whisper.  


Why did she care so much? “I’m used to it.”  


“Just answer the question,” she pleaded.  


“It doesn’t matter,” he retorted.  


She came to his side. “No one should be alone—”  


“Enough!” He tossed the journal onto a shelf. The blush intensified.  


She looked up at him, into the struggle in his blue-grey eyes. “Vergil—”  


“Stop pitying me!” His heart raced. He clenched his shaking hands. The Yamato rattled.  


Tears glazed her eyes. “I don’t pity you!”  


“You are a fool to feel anything for me—!”  


Miranda kissed him.  


Everything warring within Vergil came to a sudden, silent stop. Her mouth was soft and warm and pure. Even his demon staggered back, stunned. Her lips moved, tasting him. His mouth tingled, fumbled. _What…?_  


At the shy, light touch of her fingertips, his clenched fist opened. Her fingers slid between his. Her lips opened again, and closed gently on his bottom lip like flower petals. A delicious shock constricted his chest, coiling round his lungs. At the mercy of her mysterious, serene power he felt _lifted_.  


His lips were cold after she released him. His heart was a hurricane, furious and crazed. He didn’t know he’d closed his eyes until he opened them and stared completely dumbstruck at Miranda.  


“I don’t want you to be alone,” she whispered. Her fingers slid away, and then she was gone, leaving the scent of plumeria clinging to the air.  


Vergil drew in a long, deep breath of it, his body burning in the wake of her kiss.  


_What form of power is_ this _?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, dear clever readers, that apple is a symbol of foreshadowing...
> 
> The Vergil photo featured here is one of my own. My beta reader used the FaceApp to make him look 18 :3
> 
> The adorable Vergil+Miranda art at the end was done by my beta reader, Chiharu-chin! ^_^


	6. Flutter and Folly (Mission 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> Feeling human had never felt so glorious before. [Vergil] had never wanted it so much before. He clung to it, reveling in the fire [Miranda] aroused in him, this inexplicable power they felt together.
> 
> _…a shadow of horror is risen…  
>  …unseen in tormenting passions…  
> …brooding, secret, the dark power hid…_  
> \- The Book of Urizen by William Blake

~ A FEW HOURS LATER ~

Vergil awoke panting. His sweat-slicked chest heaved as the last lingering images of Miranda faded. In the dream she had come to him, clothed in candlelight and nothing else. Her sweet smile ignited him, and she fell upon him with warm lips and eager breath, uttering his name in pleasure.  


And he had taken her. Hard. Loud. Wet.  


Vergil slapped his hands over his face and then angrily raked them back through his hair, groaning in frustration. He threw off the blankets, but the weak summer breeze did nothing to ebb the hot ache that persisted between his legs.  


As he wandered into the courtyard, he dwelt on Miranda’s kiss, a slave to its memory. A great sigh gathered inside him. He let it go only to realize his heart was an earthquake within him, shaking him to his bones. He tried to shove the memory away, the feel of her lips touching his, but to think of it calmed the wrath that had stormed in him for so long.  


No, he could not be distracted from his mission!  


And yet…  


Why had he saved her? Why had his heart jumped when he’d heard her scream? Why had he read poetry to her? Why had he escorted her back to the cathedral when she could have gone alone? Why did his ears burn and his blood surge when she smiled at him? And most importantly…  


Why had he wanted to kiss her back?  


He drew in a long, steadying breath. No one had ever stirred such things in him before. _Human_ things. It seemed an unnecessary risk. Yet, he was beginning to understand how the legendary dark knight Sparda, untainted by human lineage, had fallen for a human woman.  


_Pathetic!_  


He returned to his bedchamber, snatched up his coat, and spent the remainder of the night in the library. The sultry summer air on his bare chest only reminded him of how warm Miranda had felt, how enthralling. He clenched his jaw and slammed a certain aged book down on a table. He flipped up his coat, sat heavily—a bit petulantly—and wrenched it open. He accidentally tore a page.  


“Blast,” he growled.  


He read through a few sections before reviewing the notes his father had left in the margins. Sparda knew how to be obnoxiously vague.  


When thoughts of Miranda threatened to pull him away from his purpose, he ran his hands through his hair over and over and read aloud.  


_I don’t want you to be alone…_  


Six phantom swords of blinding blue light instantly manifested and stabbed down into the table, narrowly missing the tome of dark alchemy. Vergil seethed against the incessant nagging of his humanity. These feelings only served to divert him.  


With Miranda, the loneliness waned.  


That curious ache opened again inside his chest. His naked skin prickled.  


Vergil leaned over the book, arms on either side, fists clenched, glaring.  


A whisper within, fragile and crumbling yet tenacious, reached past the demon and spoke a shocking truth— 

_I miss her._

~ MEANWHILE ~ 

Miranda couldn’t sleep, not after the kiss. For a fleeting moment she had felt his mouth move, but she had startled him. He could have easily pushed her away, but he hadn’t. She smiled at that. He may possess incredible demonic power, but he was powerless against a silly girl falling in love.  


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She hoped she hadn’t frightened him away forever, and no other thought was as heavy on her. Since sleep denied her, she spent some time checking inventory. Much damage had been done.  


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The entire locked section that housed all of the oldest texts had survived the demon onslaught, but one book was missing. Miranda perused the official records and determined that the tome held complex alchemical calculations, formulas, spells, and rituals. Sparda had added many of his own notes to it. She had come upon the book a couple weeks ago on a night she’d spent alone in the library. She had not deciphered much, but enough to know that the contents of the book were extremely sacred and dangerous.  


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Information on the dreaded, ancient tower called Temen-ni-gru.  


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The very name sent shivers scrabbling up her spine.  


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The book had been locked away with a few other malevolent ones. Only His Holiness carried the key. In the demonic invasion, the lock must have broken and someone must have stolen the book, someone hunting for information…  


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Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. No. Why would he seek something so terrible?  


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She was obligated to ask him. The library and its every text were her responsibility. She prayed to Sparda that his son had nothing to do with the theft of what could undo all that the legendary dark knight had done.  


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The sound of boots echoed.  


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Miranda’s heart leapt. _Vergil!_ She had feared he had chosen to sever their meetings.  


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Stepping over debris, she left the desolated aisle.  


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Her heart jammed itself painfully into her throat.  


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“Miranda, good evening,” the visitor greeted in a voice roughened by shouting orders at his subordinates.  


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Why was _he_ here? Especially at such a strange hour? The sun had yet to rise.  


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“Captain Dazran,” she replied, folding her hands at her belly and bowing her head.  


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The middle-aged captain of the Order’s research and development security battalion carried himself with an aura of entitlement and brutal strength. He was accustomed to receiving all that he desired. Power, prestige, veneration, money, and women. His shaven head bore a tattoo of the Order’s insignia, branding him a devoted servant, and he was built broad and barbaric, a striking yet perilous figure in the fitted white steel armor of his coveted position.  


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Miranda found him detestable to his core, and never cared to meet his harsh seaweed-green eyes.  


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While Vergil’s vanity was a mask to smother the anguish in his soul, Dazran’s soul was neither lonely nor in pain. Dazran had killed for position and wealth. Several teenage priestesses of the Order had mysteriously fallen into wells or ditches, presumably suicide cases, for their audacity to refuse his sick desires. Everyone knew the truth, but the Order’s corruption had grown deep.  


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“His Holiness has ordered a full analysis of the library, and we’ve found something quite peculiar,” he said, knocking a slashed book out of his path with the toe of his boot.  


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Had they noticed the missing tome as well? Miranda’s heart threatened to burst.  


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“Agnus’ assistants have scoured the room, collected data on the myriad demon signatures left in the wake of the attack,” Dazran continued, drawing near.  


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Miranda let not a single flicker of emotion disrupt the false calm in her face, but her blood pounded so hard and fearfully she wondered if he would hear it.  


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“Do we yet know what is drawing the demons here?” she asked, impassive.  


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He fastened his gaze on hers, steel chains cold and unpredictable. Cocking one thick eyebrow he replied, “Inconclusive, as Agnus tells it.”  


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She let herself breathe a small sigh of relief.  


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“However…”  


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Her breath was gone again.  


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“One of the signatures was especially strong, overpowering compared to the rest,” he added.  


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Miranda caught her hands fidgeting and clenched them together. “Has a new power risen in the underworld, do you think?”  


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He put an armored hand on one hip and surveyed the smashed remains of the library. “Perhaps. Agnus is performing tests. A delicate process, apparently.” He sounded annoyed, having always been one for instant gratification.  


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Traces of Vergil’s power… Vestiges of the Yamato’s extraordinary capabilities…  


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Agnus was the most accomplished of the Order’s research and development department. His obsession with the underworld and the power of its inhabitants was akin to madness. If anyone were to discover Vergil’s presence based on power signature, it would be Agnus.  


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Miranda needed to warn Vergil.

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__***_ _

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The entry hall was dimly lit and empty. Miranda knew to try the library first. As she walked the halls she could think of only the kiss. Her stomach fluttered, turned to butterflies swarming all the way into her chest as she neared the library. She knew she would find him there. He seemed the most peaceful in the presence of books.  


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She refused to believe he was interested in Temen-ni-gru for malicious purposes. He was not as cold and heartless as he tried to be. If he were truly villainous, he would have killed her already and taken all he wanted from the library without a care for any number of guards. He may be rather obstinate and harsh, but he didn’t want to kill anyone.  


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Upon her first step into the library, she felt his power. It was hot and furious, boiling.  


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A terrifying roar, half human and half demon, shattered the silence. The Yamato sang, and then a decorative statue collapsed into finely sliced pieces. The anger in him was palpable, but she also felt the pain in his cry. The kind of pain that when carried too long can make a soul distant and desperate.  


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Vergil, on one knee with the Yamato outstretched, panted in his frustration, his shoulders heaving. His back was to Miranda, but as she drew nearer he stood to his feet and shed his ruffled mood.  


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“Shouldn’t you be at the cathedral?” he asked in an even tone as he turned to face her.  


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She would not back down. “I need to ask you something.”  


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He raised his chin, haughty. “Do you?”  


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She came closer, holding his gaze. “Did you take a book from the Order’s library?”  


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Vergil swallowed. He had hoped it would be missed in the destruction and disarray after the demon incursion. He should have known Miranda would notice. She was far too sharp.  


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“I’m borrowing it,” he said, setting his jaw. “Isn’t that what people do with library books?”  


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“I know what’s in that book,” she said, fearful.  


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“I will return it to you once I’m finished with it,” he assured her.  


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“Do you know what will happen if that tower is raised again?” she asked.  


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“That is none of your concern,” he retorted, and strode away in hopes of ending the conversation there.  


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“Not my concern?” Miranda hurried after him down the hall, bravery unabated. “If Sparda’s spells on that tower ever break, the underworld shall once again invade mankind!” She took his arm.  


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He stopped. _Does she know_ everything _? Perhaps teaching her how to read demonic dialects was a mistake._ He did not shake off her hand this time. His skin rippled and his blood awoke.  


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“What would your father think?” she asked.  


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“My father is dead,” he said, “but his power is rightfully mine. My birthright. I must do this.”  


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Her eyes were earnest and beautiful, pleading. “Whatever your plans are involving Temen-ni-gru, they are folly, Vergil. Please.”  


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_Folly…_  


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In this moment, the spirit in her eyes moved Vergil to set aside his lifelong ambition. The world seemed smaller, calmer, lovelier when they were together. The strain in his face and shoulders gradually fell away. Miranda took his hand. He didn’t want to let go, so this time he didn’t. For the first time since he was a child, he felt liberated. He laced his fingers with hers and gently squeezed.  


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_Why does she make me feel this way?_  


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All he knew was that hers was a power against which he lost, every time a swifter defeat than the last.  


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Defying his devil and the dark scars of his past, Vergil kissed her.  


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A tiny breath of uncertainty fluttered, and then a slight, sweet sound escaped her as her lips pressed against his, warm and eager. His breath snagged. The kiss deepened. Her other hand slid up his chest. He touched her cheek. Her skin was soft and flush with heat. He felt her smile and it made his blood rush. His mouth moved confidently now, thrilled to taste her. He remembered his dream. She smelled of plumeria and seaside skies, of memories he wanted. Memories his human heart still longed to create. Despite everything.  


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Gently they broke away, but their hands remained entwined. She looked into his eyes and smiled, her face colored in rosy pleasure. He felt dazed, staring back at her, heat still running through his body.  


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“Vergil?” she said, worried.  


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A shy smile took hold of him. It huddled in one corner of his mouth while blush filled his entire face. “This is so… _new_ …for me…”  


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She stared at him, stricken to her soul. Her smile returned, dancing on her lips, sparkling in her eyes. “Please smile more. Your dimples are adorable.”  


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He sighed and turned away, embarrassed. A deeper shade of pink warmed his face. “I don’t like them.”  


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She giggled. “I find them to be most handsome.”  


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A quick, nervous smirk bounced in one corner of his mouth as if to thank her. A flash of what she liked. “Miranda?”  


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“Hm?” Her thumb stroked the back of his hand, that space his worn glove left bare.  


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With a rush of earnest breath, Vergil kissed her again, and she cast herself into the fullness of his embrace. Her hands slid around his waist, vanishing into his coat, and curled against the small of his back.  


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He ripped off his gloves and held her face in his naked hands. Skin to skin. Her delicate, elated moans made his blood surge harder. He made groans of pleasure in return. Speech without words.  


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Feeling human had never felt so glorious before. He had never wanted it so much before. He clung to it, reveling in the fire she aroused in him, this inexplicable power they felt together.  


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_…a shadow of horror is risen…_  


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_…unseen in tormenting passions…_  


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_…brooding, secret, the dark power hid…_  


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His brow furrowed against the rising of his old dark thoughts. Was power not everything…? He wanted more of this life she sparked in him, but he feared to lose it. That “brooding, secret, dark power” within him paced like a panther, ever demanding for release, for control, for domination of his soul.  


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_It’s easier to be alone! I can’t lose anything if I’m alone…_  


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Vergil’s mouth slowed, his heart overshadowed by the black clouds of the past. Their lips slid apart. His hands fell to her waist, and they stood panting in each other’s arms. His eyes were downcast. Miranda searched his troubled face.  


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Gently, she kissed the corner of his mouth. “Don’t be alone,” she whispered. “Not even in your thoughts.”  


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He met her eyes again and touched her cheek, stroking tenderly.  


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“My thoughts are a pit,” he uttered, “swallowing the light.”  


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Poetic even in his suffering.  


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The sorrow in his voice was a cold blade twisting in her belly. She cupped his face in her hands. “Please tell me.”  


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His frown hardened as the war within him flared anew in the forefront of his soul. He shook his head and released her, though he wished to hold her closer. Frustrated and confused, he quietly said, “Leave me.”  


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“I’m not leaving you alone,” she insisted. Tears stung her eyes.  


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He longed to comfort her trembling lips, but instead he walked out of her embrace.  


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_Foolishness…_

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	7. Triggered Heart (Mission 7)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> “‘Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens,’” [Miranda] quoted, like feathers and iron.  
> [Vergil] met her eyes then, his heart constricting. “How are you doing this?”  
> “Doing what?”  
> “You make me…” he stammered, confounded, “… _feel_ things!”  
> She placed a hand upon his chest, exactly upon his heart. He released a breath, swift and like a whisper. Beneath her palm his heart rumbled and crashed, a storm of emotion he was so stubborn to let surface.  
> In the smallest, shyest voice, she asked, “Why did you kiss me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong language warning!

~A FEW DAYS LATER ~

The first threads of dawn groped the horizon, clawing across the distant sea. The last of the damage in the library had been rectified. A few blade-made scars marked the marble floor and the destroyed furniture had been removed. Thankfully, Sparda’s statue remained unmarred.  


Miranda sat at the feet of the towering memorial and thought of Vergil. Folding her hands upon her knees, she closed her eyes and prayed. Vergil’s heart was veiled, yet she tasted the longing in its depths when he kissed her. He was crying in the dark hallways of his own mind. She ached to free him.  


The heavy doors of the library burst open and a squad of twelve Order knights spilled inside. They were led by Captain Dazran.  


Miranda jumped to her feet, her heart scurrying like a hunted fox. Though it was merely stone, Sparda’s grand likeness gave her a sense of protection over her. The soldiers surged outward, ordering the other few disciples out. They obeyed without question, scattering like roaches before the flame.  


Captain Dazran rode on a lofty wave of his usual cavalier demeanor. He came before Miranda, and she shivered beneath his lewd grin. His men surrounded her on all sides, but she remembered the image of Sparda watching over her.  


“Where is it?” Dazran demanded of her.  


Her breath quickened. “What are you looking for?”  


He lunged at her and wrapped a cruel hand around her neck. She screamed. He shoved her onto her knees, bruising her against the cold marble.  


“I haven’t the patience to fuck around,” he hissed into her ear. “Where is the book?”  


“What book?” she whimpered.  


His hand tightened on her neck. She gasped in pain. “You know which fucking book! Tell me!”  


“Please!” she cried. “I don’t know!”  


“You were the librarian on duty during the demon attacks!” he shouted.  


“I’ve taken nothing!” she pleaded.  


He crouched beside her, his voice a mockery of kindness against her cheek. “I’d rather not bleed the answer from you, Miranda.”  


She clenched her hands atop her thighs, biting back a sob. Refusing to look at him or give him the satisfaction of another plea, she told him in a flat tone, “I’ve taken nothing.”  


Dazran seized her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. She shrieked in pain, struggling. He pulled her into the section of the library where the most dangerous tomes were kept under lock and key. He again forced her to the floor.  


“Just give me the book,” he sighed, irritated.  


“I don’t even know what book you’re talking about!” she insisted even as she stared at the gaping space on the shelf where the book on Temen-ni-gru once rested.  


He grabbed her by the hair again and yanked her head back. “The other librarian bitches are dumber than the ass-end of a goat. Not to mention they can’t read.”  


Miranda trembled in his grip, fighting tears. She did not want to show him the terror growing in her heart. _You can trust me, Vergil._  


“Where. Is. The book?” he growled.  


“I don’t know,” she repeated, hardening her voice.  


Furious, he pulled her to her feet and shoved her against the bookshelves. “Don’t think you can lie to me.”  


She closed her eyes, biting back whimpers of pain, and held her breath. “I don’t have it.”  


He snatched her chin in one rough hand and pressed himself against her. His voice dropped into a low, salacious tone. “Then you’ll give me what you _do_ have.”  


Her heart plunged into her stomach. “Captain, I swear to you I’ve stolen nothing from the Order.”  


“Beg harder—”  


A glowing azure blade impaled the captain’s back and jutted out of his chest, just below his left shoulder. The phantom weapon vanished in a cloud of cerulean shards. Fingers curled and trembling, Dazran reached for the wound, which burned through flesh and steel.  


“What in Sparda’s name—?” he muttered, his mouth agape. He staggered back from Miranda as the burning continued to spread across his chest, melting away the metal breastplate.  


Miranda took the opportunity to escape.  


“Seize her—!” Dazran roared, but pain cut away his words.  


Miranda ran, the soldiers close at her heels. As she reached the doors, a chorus of cries erupted behind her. She spared a swift glance over her shoulder. Twelve of the same phantom blue blades impaled the twelve soldiers. Each one burst in a shower of cerulean light and left their victims writhing and groaning in pain.  


Miranda wasted no more time. Forsaking the cathedral, she lost herself in the narrow streets of Fortuna and took refuge in an abandoned shop tucked away along an empty dock. In the shadows she shrank into a dusty corner, caught her breath, and gave in to her tears.  


Vergil was near, and she yearned for him.  


Utterly spent, she wept until the shock buried her in blackness.

~ MOONRISE ~

Miranda awoke in gentle candlelight and covered with blankets. The bed was a cocoon, enfolding her in luxury and comfort. Her heart scrambled in circles. Sitting upright, she glanced about the room, which she quickly recognized.  


The chamber Vergil had given her.  


Gathering the bedclothes in her arms, she thought of the only explanation for why she was here. Climbing out of bed, she hurried out into the hall, barefoot and eager. Shuddering despite the evening heat, she padded down the enormous corridor, following the light of flaming lamps.  


His door was ajar. Cautiously she approached. Peering in, she found that he wasn’t there.  


Through the narrow space she noticed an old, thick book. Her heart hitched, like the pricking of a thorn. She needed to confirm it one way or another. Opening the door a little further, she slipped inside. The book lay open to a page full of diagrams telling of the intricate and diabolical construction of the bells that rang atop Temen-ni-gru. Her chest ached.  


_Why do you seek a gate to such evil?_  


Unable to bear the presence of the horrific book, she left the Master’s Chamber and walked the silent halls. Moonlight spilled through the windows, bathing her in soft white light, but her mind was consumed by thoughts of the underworld opening its hungry jaws once more and subjecting mankind to a full-scale war with hellish beasts.  


Is that what Vergil truly wanted?  


Her aimless wandering took her into the observatory. The entire ceiling was a clear glass dome. The almost-full moon seemed to fill the whole sky, a silver-white king of an immense beautiful darkness.  


Vergil stood cloaked in it, his chin lifted, gazing solemnly into the beauty of the night.  


When she came but a few paces apart from him, he met her gaze over his shoulder.  


His intense eyes held her fast. The pale glow of the moon illuminated the handsome angles of his face.  


Blush screamed like fire across her skin. She looked away, nibbling her lower lip.  


He turned back to the moon.  


“The Order knows the book is missing,” she muttered.  


“I know,” he said.  


“I didn’t tell them where it is,” she promised, shaking her head.  


His voice gentled. “I know.”  


She snatched a quick, nervous breath, and stepped a bit closer. “Why am I here?”  


His eyes were different when he looked at her this time—full, shy, and hopeful. He swallowed as the blush burst across his face. “I am not leaving you alone.”  


The echo of her words wrapped in his charming voice stirred her heart into a whirlwind of petals and butterflies. He looked away and ran a nervous hand through his hair, took a breath, and tried to speak again, but instead he sighed, frustrated.  


Standing at his side, she smiled at the moon, her cheeks like cherry blossoms. “‘The moon, like a flower in heaven’s high bower, with silent delight, sits and smiles on the night.’”  


His gaze shifted to her. William Blake again. Vergil swallowed. His chest, yet again, filled with that ache of desire. The light on her fair skin, dancing in the dark of her hair, glowing upon her lips that spoke honey and sunshine.  


A heaven made flesh.  


Plumeria gripped him fast. _He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence._  


“Vergil?”  


Her voice lifted him out of his baffling thoughts.  


She bowed her head. “What are you afraid of?”  


He wrestled with that question constantly though he loathed to admit to something so pathetic as fear.  


_One thought fills immensity… Miranda… My only thought as of late…_  


“I fear nothing,” he said firmly.  


“I’m afraid for you,” she uttered, and touched her fingertips to his.  


No matter how viciously he tried to crush it into a corner, Vergil’s human half would not be extinguished. It cried out, begging for the unbinding he had long denied it.  


“It’s all right to be afraid,” she said.  


He frowned out at the night, remembering. The fire. The demons. The rage. The abandonment. The terror that had ripped his heart asunder. Over the years, the pieces had grown back crooked.  


“I will never be afraid again,” he said. “I will never be powerless again.”  


“The power you seek… It’s not the answer.” She slid her hand fully into his.  


Then what was the answer?  


He squeezed her hand. “Demons attacked my family when I was a child. My mother perished. I couldn’t even protect myself.” His throat tightened. “I was weak.”  


“You were a child,” she said.  


“I was pathetic,” he retorted, the anger creeping into his voice. “Without power, I can’t protect anything.”  


“So that’s why you seek your father’s power in Temen-ni-gru? To be untouchable?”  


He thought of her hand in his, weighing the risk, unsure. “There’s no other way.”  


Yet he did not take his hand from hers, his human feelings stubbornly holding on.  


She gave a small, sorrowful sigh. “Yes there is,” she said. “I can see the part of you that wants it.” Her hand slid out of his.  


As he watched her leave, the ache in his chest became a sharp, expanding pain. The distance between them yawned like a chasm growing deep and wide.  


Without a second thought, he warped around in front of her and said, “This is foolishness, Miranda. The cathedral is no longer safe for you.”  


She stood her ground, hardening her gaze. “Captain Dazran can’t prove that I took the book.”  


Vergil sniffed, derisive. “The Order doesn’t want truth. They create their own elaborate lies for their own ends.”  


Miranda knew this to be true. Dazran was a perfect example. He had lied about the deaths of several girls. The Order never questioned him, and recently the research and development department had been especially quiet while security had gotten tighter. Some lower Order members and many of the populace had begun asking questions, but no one offered any logical answers.  


“Vergil, listen to me,” she pleaded. “The Order found traces of your power in the library, and now you've openly used it against them. They know there is a demonic presence in Fortuna that is far greater than any they’ve seen since Sparda resided here.”  


Vergil seemed unperturbed by the news. “If anyone should oppose me I will simply cut them down.”  


Miranda let out a rough sigh. His vanity was simply annoying now. “This entire island worships your father. If the Order discovered he had a son they would attempt to subdue you, study you, contain you.”  


He laughed, genuinely amused. “Let them try.”  


“Vergil, please,” she emphasized. “They stop at nothing.”  


“Neither do I,” he snarled.  


Silence fell between them. They both ached to speak, their gazes holding one another. Vergil was the first to turn away. Blushing, he ran a hand across his mouth and cleared his throat.  


“Go before you’re missed, then,” he muttered, gesturing toward the door of the observatory, “if you insist on endangering yourself.”  


Miranda drew closer to him. He avoided her eyes like a shy little boy, his face as red as any rose. He bent his white brows into that solemn frown, that mask that hid the real feelings inside of him. His full lips reminded her of the kisses they’d shared, and she yearned to taste him again.  


“Stop staring at me,” he grumbled.  


“Stop hiding behind your anger,” she replied.  


“I’m not hiding,” he argued.  


“‘Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens,’” she quoted, like feathers and iron.  


He met her eyes then, his heart constricting. “How are you doing this?”  


“Doing what?”  


“You make me…” he stammered, confounded, “… _feel_ things!”  


She placed a hand upon his chest, exactly upon his heart. He released a breath, swift and like a whisper. Beneath her palm his heart rumbled and crashed, a storm of emotion he was so stubborn to let surface.  


In the smallest, shyest voice, she asked, “Why did you kiss me?”  


He swallowed, and it hurt because of the tightness in his throat. “I should ask that of you.”  


“Can you not guess?” Her hand on him was a firebrand, marking him deeper, hotter.  


“Are those translations so important to you?” he asked, rash and sour.  


Her face fell into stunned sorrow. She took her hand from him as if she’d been burned. “That’s what you think?” Her voice caught. She stepped back from him.  


Vergil didn’t know how to answer. All he knew, all he felt, was the absence of her touch and it made him cold and empty again.  


Tears filled her eyes as her breast bobbed in her heartache.  


“Miranda—”  


“You think me so shallow?” she asked, trembling.  


“That’s not—”  


“You think I would cheat you?” Her tears spilled. “Like some dockside _whore_?”  


Vergil’s eyes widened, his mouth agape, aghast. “No! I never—!”  


“Perhaps you’ve only used me, and _I_ am the fool!” she cried, and turned to leave the observatory. The echo of her rushing steps and anguished sobs brought stabbing shame to Vergil.  


He ran after her.  


“Miranda, wait!” he called. In a flash of blue he stood before her. “Miranda, please, that’s not what I meant!”  


“It could mean nothing else!” she cried. “You think me deceitful!”  


“I don’t!” A surge of desperation made his chest ache.  


“Then what am I to you?” she demanded, fresh tears falling. “Just tell me!”  


Like a wall of glass, his resistance shattered.  


Vergil dropped the Yamato.  


As it clanged upon the floor, forgotten, he wrapped her close and tight in his arms, and kissed her. Yearning. Ardent. _Motivated_.  


Miranda did not resist. As soon as she felt his lips she slid her trembling hands up his neck and into his white hair, returning every kiss he gave, matching his fire and showing him her own motivation.  


Vergil’s gloved palm was warm against her cheek, and his mouth was intense and hot. Their breath mingled as they gasped together. He groaned, and dipped his tongue between her lips. Whimpering, she nipped his bottom lip, and clung to him harder.  


At last, when neither of them could breathe, their mouths parted, slow, reluctant. They smiled at one another, sharing little pieces of shy laughter. When was the last time Vergil had laughed out of happiness?  


_Oh, Miranda, you are…_  


Vergil cupped her face and whispered, “You are heaven, beautiful and bright.”  


She linked her arms around his hips. Her cheeks were wonderfully flush, tantalizing. Her gaze, as she held his, never faltered. “Come away from the dark,” she whispered, “and don’t be alone anymore.”  


He stroked her fair cheek with his thumb, ruminating. She touched his hand, her breast swelling, hopeful.  


Vergil closed his eyes. _The most sublime act is to set another before you._ “I’ve endangered you.”  


“Oh, Vergil,” she sighed. “You protected me.”  


He opened his eyes again. Low and husky, he murmured, “Please stay here. With me.”  


Miranda’s heart climbed into her throat. “Why?”  


“So I can always protect you,” he said.  


After the heat of such passionate kisses, she wanted a clear answer, the whole answer. “But why do you want to protect me, Vergil?”  


To hear her speak his name was gentle waters bathing his soul.  


They stared at each other in the moonlit quiet. He knew the truth now, yet still he hesitated to speak it. If he were to declare it now… No, the risk was too great, and there was still a chance to reject it… But to hold her in his arms like this… Again he recalled his dream…  


The foundation of the castle trembled.  


Vergil held Miranda to his chest in a protective embrace.  


“This is curious.” Vergil closed his eyes and waited, listening. The ancient castle stone rumbled again. “It’s coming from the lab.”  


Miranda looked up at him, puzzled. “The lab?”  


He summoned the Yamato to his left hand, and then presented his right arm for her to take. “Come with me.”  


Her heart fluttered at his gallantry. She took it, pressing close to him. An unnatural warmth emanated from him, different than that of any normal human. In it Miranda felt safe. Unafraid.  


Beneath the star-studded velvet of the night sky, the eldest son of Sparda escorted his crimson-clad lady. Miranda felt like a queen to be on Vergil’s arm. Without effort, he carried himself with kingly poise. A true force of nature was he.  


He brought her into the small side room that branched off the library, through the doorway that was nothing but a sharp rectangle cut from the wall between two towering bookcases. The room was fairly wide, though empty save for a stub of a carven pillar in the center of the floor. It appeared unfinished.  


Ruined glass lined the edge of the western wall. “Mirror shards,” Vergil told her. “Mind your step.”  


Miranda lifted the hem of her dress and stepped gingerly. With the scuffed toe of his boot, Vergil knocked aside the larger pieces for her.  


“A handful of hell-scum attempted to combat me here,” Vergil explained, “and in the ensuing assault it shattered, revealing this corridor.” He raked a hand through his hair, a vain grin flashing at his lips. “The secrets of the Order continue to mount.”  


The corridor led into the darkness and ended at a bulky iron door that bore the unmistakable insignia of the Order of the Sword. Miranda clutched his arm, suddenly overcome by a crushing sense of exposure.  


“I thought venturing into the bowels of the Order might be useful to me,” he continued, “but I found nothing of practical relevance other than more proof that this questionable religious faction harbors ulterior motives.”  


Miranda’s heart shuddered. “Where does it lead, exactly?”  


“The research and development department,” he answered. “Quite a direct route, in fact.”  


“And you went there?” Panic poisoned the air. “Did anyone see you?”  


He raised a cocksure eyebrow at her. “You needn’t be so concerned.”  


The castle shook around them again. A muffled bestial shriek came from beneath their feet. Miranda gasped, clinging to Vergil’s arm.  


“I will do away with whatever scum lies below the castle.” He touched her cheek. “I _will_ protect you, Miranda. Wait for me in the library.” He slid the Yamato melodically from its sheath and strode through the secret door, motivated as ever.  


Once he’d gone, Miranda stood a while watching the door, hoping he would return in but a few short minutes. Worry chilled her blood. Hugging her arms around herself, she prayed for Sparda’s protection over his son. She could still feel Vergil’s lips upon her own.  


_Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens._  


In their kisses that night, Miranda had felt it. A flower of fire unfurling.  


Vergil had woken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hidden room where Vergil found the secret passage to R & D is the same room where you find the Anima Mercury in DMC4. For my story, none of that pillar or wall around it has been finished yet, but years after _Heaven's High Bower_ Agnus tightened security and changed this room to what we see in DMC4.
> 
> My beta reader did some adorable art at the end of Mission 5 ^_^ This one below that she did after reading _Heaven's High Bower_ is my FAVORITE and makes my heart SO full <3  
> 


	8. Fire and Venom (Mission 8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> [Miranda's] breath was close against his skin, warm and trembling. [Vergil] turned to her over his shoulder, his eyes deep and motivated. She gazed at him, her lips parted, and stroked the small of his back. The light in her eyes invited him.

~ NOT LONG BEFORE DAWN ~

Though Miranda did not doubt his incredible strength, she worried for Vergil. The castle trembled as earthquake-like power surged beneath its foundations. She paced the library as she waited for Vergil’s return. The old leather-bound journals filled with Sparda’s elegant yet rather ragged handwriting were still on the shelf. Vergil had left them there, and apparently had no intention of reading through them again.  


She passed the time frowning in concentration over the journal entries. The handwriting was faded and difficult to read. One short passage in particular plucked at her heart.  


_I ache for her. It has been months. I had promised to return much sooner. The boys are likely growing tall and strong, though I still intend to keep the full truth of their heritage a secret until they are old enough to understand. I miss them too, just as terribly. Vergil is already taking after his mother in how stubborn he can be. Dante, on the other hand, is the very picture of carefree and reminds me of when I was young oh so long ago. I’m an abysmal father. I cannot be with them like I should. I hope they never need face what I face now. Mundus’ hordes continue to pursue me in his relentless vengeance. If I should fail in my final mission here, Mundus will hunt my sons. I am certain of it. Therefore, I must not fail. I shall not fail._  


Vergil had a brother? What had Sparda’s mission been here in Fortuna?  


Miranda quickly set aside the journal at the sound of labored breath and painful grunts. She hurried back into the side room just as Vergil slammed the heavy secret door behind him. He stumbled through the corridor, bent over, clutching the Yamato in a weakened grip that trembled.  


“Vergil, what happened?” she asked, frightened.  


He grimaced against the pain. Blood stained his long coat. “I cast it back.” He strode out of the library breathing rather heavily. In the moment she saw his bloodied back, she gasped.  


Three long bloody claw marks crossed his upper back.  


“You’re badly wounded,” she said, following alongside him.  


“I’m fine!” He hastened his pace as if he meant to avoid her. Miranda knew not to leave him alone.  


They came to the Master’s Chamber. He leaned the Yamato against the wall and shrugged off his coat.  


“What was it?” Miranda asked, worried.  


“Just more demon scum the Order devised,” he replied, frustrated. He ripped off his gloves and tossed them onto the floor.  


It was his pride that had taken the most damage, and Miranda understood that. He was a warrior, after all. “Let me help you.”  


He scowled at her, but his face softened the longer he fell into her gentle gaze. He straightened and nodded at her.  


She removed his ascot, her fingers shaking a little as they brushed against his throat. He swallowed nervously. A tiny smile fluttered on her lips. Then she carefully opened his vest. Her mouth dried up and her throat tightened upon the unveiling of his beautifully sculpted chest. He pulled the vest off completely and tossed it onto a chair. A large, scarlet medallion hung on a gold chain around his neck.  


Standing near the bedside, Miranda examined the wounds on Vergil’s back.  


They had already begun to heal due to his demonic power, but the slashes had been deep. Bone-deep? Something huge and angry had done battle with him. The edges of the claw marks were red and hot.  


Miranda touched him.  


Vergil flinched, but not in pain.  


“Does it hurt?” she asked.  


He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”  


Her fingertips wandered to the small of his back. His skin grew warmer and shivered beneath her fingers. His next breath was a struggle.  


Miranda lightly kissed the reddened edge of a wound. A tiny delighted noise bubbled in Vergil’s throat. Her breath was close against his skin, warm and trembling. He turned to her over his shoulder, his eyes deep and motivated. She gazed at him, her lips parted, and stroked the small of his back. The light in her eyes invited him.  


Vergil’s lips arrested hers in shameless desire as he enveloped all of her in his arms. A surprised moan escaped her. Sliding her hands around his waist, avoiding his injuries, she pressed her hips against his. He grunted, aroused, and kissed her fiercely. She smiled, panting, and pulled him down with her onto the bed.  


Their kisses quickened. Vergil’s knee pinned Miranda’s dress to the bed, between her legs. They fell deeper into the heat their ardent touch created. Vergil moved his knee and nudged her. She gasped, her fingers biting into his bare biceps. Moaning, he released her lips, startled by the delicious noise she’d made. His face was awash in bright, autumn-apple pink. They gazed at one another, their breath heavy.  


Miranda kissed his chin, soft and slow. Vergil closed his eyes and sighed. Her hands moved down his waist, fingers curling. The medallion around his neck hung down and rested upon her breasts. Growling, he kissed her, frantic and flawless. She tried to raise her knees on either side of him, but her dress remained pinned, hindering her reach.  


Vergil’s mouth was dry like hellfire as together they tugged her dress to her hips. A musical moan came from her as his quivering hand traveled up her bare leg. Then his fingers met a simple bit of dark cloth that was bound about her hips, concealing the… _consecrated domain_ that he so keenly, painfully, wished to explore. His breath caught nervously and he clenched his teeth. He wanted to be a gentleman. He was unsure if he had been granted permission.  


Sensing his timidity, Miranda smiled up at him in sweet appreciation of his courteousness. Reaching down, she hooked her fingers into that thin and flimsy shield of soft linen and wriggled it down her thighs, her eyes never leaving Vergil’s. He felt every single wriggle she made, and burned hotter. He helped her tug the linen down, almost ripping it in his eagerness.  


She kindled a teasing kiss. Her tongue was warm and curious.  


Sliding her hands around his neck and up into his hair, stroking hard, she bent her legs around his hips. Then she felt the full hardness of him push against her. She drew in a long, astonished breath.  


He groaned, one hand gripping the bedsheets while the other slid up from her belly and grasped a handful of the laces binding her breasts. His fingers slipped inside her bodice. They gasped together. Her skin was warm and soft, and he felt the galloping of her heart, which churned his rising desire.  


Her legs slid away a little, and her hands moved down, stroking hard muscle, tracing his navel until…  


At once they both froze, breath suddenly caught.  


With lips parted, they could only lay suspended in the swirling, dizzying heat of their bodies. Miranda sighed heavily as his clasp was undone.  


Her fingers reached in, gentle and atremble, and touched him.  


Loud and guiltless, Vergil groaned. His mouth took hers in wilder kisses. Miranda was desperate for every breath. Her fingers fondled him a little more. He huffed, heavy and happy.  


They felt each other, skin to skin, and tasted sweat upon each other’s lips. They were both nervous, but ready and aching. Vergil lifted his hips—  


Pain screamed across his wounds like hateful fire. It severed the pleasure like the Yamato’s unstoppable rapid slash. The rage of his demon awoke out of the sweet heat of their loving. Vergil groaned again but it was frustration, anger, a counter attack against his own body. His devil-powered grip tightened on Miranda, his fingers digging harshly into her skin, a combative reflex.  


She gave a small cry of pain.  


Vergil’s heart shot into his throat, and he wrenched his entire body away from her. The pain mounted. He fell onto the floor on hands and knees, a bestial noise building in his throat.  


"Vergil!” Miranda cried, afraid. She scrambled off the bed and knelt beside him.  


The slash wounds across Vergil’s back blackened, the skin peeling. The cerulean fire of his demon glowed along the edges as if trying to burn out an infection.  


Venom. His demonic power was fighting to neutralize it, but simultaneously aiding the poison in killing his human flesh. Miranda had seen something similar before.  


What kind of demon had Vergil fought?  


He didn’t have much time.  


“You’re poisoned,” she told him, trying to stay calm despite the thrashing of her heart.  


His fingers clawed at the floor. She lifted his face. Their eyes met. His jaw was clenched against the pain and his eyes watered and reddened. The motivation in his gaze reassured her. She helped him back onto the bed.  


“I can get an antidote,” she said. “Try not to move.”  


“No, it’s not safe,” he said in a strained voice, and caught her hand.  


She stroked back his hair. “There’s no time to explain. I’ll return with help.” She kissed him, and then hurried away.  


Gritting his teeth, Vergil fought the pain and the shame of his weakness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am cruel, I know 🙃 Credit to my beta reader, Chiharu-chin, for suggesting that I be thusly cruel 😆


	9. Of Science and Demons (Mission 9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:  
> Infiltrating the research and development department demanded caution and cunning. The way was cold and hollow and lined in thick augmented steel crafted to weaken demons…and contain them. Miranda stepped light and swift as she followed the maze in dim, artificial light.

Hastening back into the library, Miranda hurried to the iron door and heaved it open, her hood thrown back, her hair wild and free. She had heard rumors of secret passages in Fortuna Castle, but never gave much credence to them. Until now.  


The magnificent, hot throbbing lingered deep between her hips, in that untouched space she only wanted Vergil to fill. Until she burst. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips.  


His hot breath across her skin…as he groaned for her…  


_Focus._  


Vergil lay dying now. If the venom did not kill him, his own demon could burn through his human flesh out of retaliation against the invasive biochemical. Therefore, it might render Vergil unable to take human form ever again. If it didn’t kill him. The Order’s military had faced wounds such as this before. Miranda hoped and prayed that the same cure could help Vergil. Modifying the antidote may be necessary.  


A short, dark hall led away from the secret door and brought Miranda to a heavily armored gate of glowing orange lasers that barred her way. Dismay savaged her heart.  


“Oh no!” she muttered, examining the small control panel. The black, lifeless screen above the panel mocked her. If only she had the convenient, space-bending power of teleportation…  


_It won’t work._  


In her memory, Vergil screamed in pain.  


Motivated, she leaned closer to the scanner above the panel. The scan took seconds that felt like hours. Three bright lines of light swept across her eyes.  


A mechanical, three-toned male voice announced: RETINA CONFIRMED. ACCESS GRANTED.  


The orange lasers, lethal enough to sever limbs, shot into the floor, clearing the way.  


_Agnus hasn’t erased my biometrics from the system yet?_  


There was no time to wonder. Miranda hurried into familiar corridors.  


Infiltrating the research and development department demanded caution and cunning. The way was cold and hollow and lined in thick augmented steel crafted to weaken demons…and contain them. Miranda stepped light and swift as she followed the maze in dim, artificial light.  


Security was neither lax nor tight, but all materials were always on lockdown, requiring specific access codes. The number of staff would be minimal in the early hours of the day, so perhaps she could slip in and out without anyone noticing.  


Rounding a corner, she bumped into a patrolling knight. Gasping, she quickly pulled her hood over her head and said, “Beg pardon!”  


The knight’s hand shot to the hilt of his sword at his hip, but his battle glare softened when he caught a glimpse of the gleaming silver badge pinned above Miranda’s breast.  


“Oh, a Tome Warden,” he muttered, using her official title, the highest title given to librarians in the Order of the Sword. He stood tall and intimidating, polished to perfection. His face, however, was badly scarred on the left side. Crooked claw marks. Behind those puffy, pink lines he looked only a few years older than Miranda. “Did Agnus summon you here for some purpose?”  


Miranda’s voice caught in her throat. If she failed to convince him, Vergil would surely die. Pulling herself erect and donning an air of utmost professionalism, she replied, “I’ve encountered some interesting records regarding power manifestation in the underworld. I would like to cross-reference them with certain scientific data.” It was not entirely a lie.  


The young knight narrowed his eyes at her, suspicion clouding his countenance. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, silently debating.  


“The gold-eyed girl,” he mused aloud. “Miranda, right?”  


She nodded. Her hands shook, so she clasped them together.  


“Thanks to your pretty brains my brother survived yesterday’s demon strike in the marketplace.” Half his mouth tipped up into an inscrutable smirk. "Some of us wish you were still in this department."  


“I’m happy to know my research has saved lives,” she replied, bowing her head. _I just hope it can save Vergil._ Fear chewed on her heart. Every second was precious.  


“You may proceed,” he said, stepping aside. “Just be quick about your business.”  


Miranda nodded, grateful, and hurried along without looking conspicuous.  


The chemical storage room was locked by a keypad demanding a particular sequence of alchemical glyphs. Many of these glyphs still lingered in the archives of her memory, and so she quickly input several combinations in hopes of admittance.  


The keypad denied her every effort. It was no shocking surprise. A fresh flare of dread came over her.  


The shaking of her hands worsened as she tried another combination, her thoughts drifting to Vergil writhing in poisoned torment.  


She bit her lip as the keypad flashed angry red light at her again, refusing her.  


“No, please,” she muttered under her breath.  


“Mira?”  


She gasped, whirling around. “Kassia!”  


The woman was about six years Miranda’s senior and also arrayed in white and crimson, but in a particular higher-echelon style. Her gloved hands sat upon her hips. The elegant white coat she wore fell to her ankles. Sticky chemicals stained her hefty, knee-high boots. Her chic suit was a darker shade of red than Miranda’s dress, representing the importance of her position.  


The meaning of the bright golden pin upon her breast twisted Miranda’s stomach. Kassia was now head assistant to Agnus.  


“All your codes were deactivated the very hour you left the department,” Kassia told her. “Did you really think you could still use them?”  


“No, but…” Miranda caught herself before mentioning that a gate had accepted her retinal scan. Slipping back into her prodigy days as a demon essence specialist was too easy. Those days felt like yesterday and eons ago. Kassia had taken Miranda under her wing, become a kind of mentor to her, the closest thing she ever had to a sister, shortly after the Order had inducted Miranda into its ranks.  


“I had to try.” She looked at her oldest friend, imploring. “Please, Kassia. Help me.”  


Frowning, Kassia asked, “Why are you here?”  


Miranda hesitated. “I need an antidote.”  


Kassia’s eyes widened. “What kind of demon attacked you?” She reached for her as if to examine her for a wound.  


“It’s not for me,” Miranda assured her. Fighting the sleep deprivation was difficult. “It’s for…a friend.”  


“A friend?” Kassia cocked an eyebrow that matched her deep, king’s-gold hair. “Mira, I know how lonely you are. You do not attach yourself to others on a whim.”  


“Please. Will you grant me access?” Miranda pleaded, trying not to sound too desperate.  


Kassia sighed and looked up and down the corridor. In a hushed voice she said, “Alright, but hurry.”  


Miranda nodded. “Of course.”  


Kassia moved to the keypad, waited for Miranda to turn away, and then entered a long sequence of code. There was a loud hiss of compressed air and the doors slid apart.  


Both women slipped inside and the doors closed.  


The storage chamber was like a freezer, cold, dimly lit, and disheartening. Miranda searched the myriad shelves, found an empty vial and mixing flasks, and set to work matching chemicals and testing reagents and combining different degrees of various demonic fluids. Following her own research notes, she crafted a concoction with delicacy and a skilled hand. Demonic fluids were volatile at best.  


“So what’s it like being a Tome Warden?” Kassia asked, a drop of sarcasm flavoring her words.  


“It’s all the research without all the hazards,” Miranda replied, swirling a bright purple liquid in a test tube.  


“Sounds too safe and boring to me.” Kassia had always enjoyed the element of danger in R&D more than Miranda, perhaps to a degree of benign madness. It seemed fitting that Agnus would choose her as his new assistant. “Will you ever tell me why you left R&D?”  


Miranda paused to let the antidote simmer and swirl over a precise heat. “I’d rather not.”  


Kassia rolled her eyes. “At least tell me about this ‘friend.’”  


The liquid turned vibrant green. Exasperated, Miranda blurted, “He’s just a friend.”  


Kassia’s eyebrows lifted. “ _He_?”  


Miranda closed her eyes and cursed herself. She needed sleep so badly, but Vergil kept her motivated.  


“Who is _he_?” Kassia pressed. A playful grin formed on her nicked lips.  


“No one! He’s…one of the knights who guard the library during my watch. He was wounded during one of the demon attacks.” Miranda worried she spoke too quickly to avoid suspicion.  


“Why didn’t you bring him straight to medical, then?” Kassia came to Miranda’s side and leaned one hand on the worktable. She stared at her protege intently. “Mira, I’m not stupid. Don’t treat me like I am.”  


Miranda briefly met her hard gaze before concentrating on the bubbling concoction again.  


“He’s not just a friend, is he?”  


“Please, Kassia, I mustn’t linger.” The antidote’s harsh green faded to a thick grey color. The bubbling calmed, and then she capped the vial. It was the best she could do with what was at hand. It was a chance, but it was Vergil’s only chance.  


“Mira, what is going on?” Kassia was growing angry.  


“You don’t need to know the details.” Miranda moved toward the door.  


Kassia stepped in her way, her hand held out. “There is a terrifying power somewhere in Fortuna. You need to be extremely careful. The only thing we know is that it is similar to the power residue Sparda left behind.” She firmly took Miranda’s arms as if she were about to shake sense into her. “You like to be alone, I know, but that’s why I worry. A powerful demon is loose out of Hell. It is not to be underestimated.”  


Miranda squeezed her friend’s hand and offered a faint smile. “I’m all right. Thank you for your help.”  


Kassia spent a long moment studying Miranda’s face as if looking for cracks in her facade. Finally she nodded, and keyed in the code for the doors again.  


“I hope the antidote works,” she offered.  


“Thank you,” Miranda replied.  


Kassia caught her hand and looked hard at her, warning her. “Stay vigilant, Mira. The more powerful the demon, the more beguiling.”  


A chill wormed into Miranda’s gut. _I trust Vergil with all my heart._ She nodded, and then hastened away down the corridor. Kassia watched her go, her eyes narrowing, and then returned to her duties.

***

The only thing preventing Miranda from dropping to the floor in utter exhaustion was the thought of losing Vergil. She hastened through the iron door, hurried out of the library, until at last she burst through the door of the Master’s Chamber.  


Upon the bed, Vergil writhed in pain. His body wore his blackish-blue demon flesh. Blue flame screamed out of his horns. The echoes of his layered voice, dark and tortured, filled Miranda with a sadness that made her soul ache.  


Hurrying to his side, antidote in hand, she forgot her fatigue and thought of nothing but ending Vergil’s agony. A dangerous heat radiated off his body, yet she reached out to him and touched his clawed hand.  


“Vergil,” she called to him, stuffing her fear down deep and away. “Vergil?”  


He opened his flaring demon eyes. He gripped her hand, and his pain-filled groans slightly eased. “Miranda?” he rasped.  


“Drink this, hurry,” she said, tipping the vial to his fangs. Tears blurred her eyes.  


Vergil noticed them. Between grunts, he asked brokenly, “Are you hurt?” He reached up and gently stroked her cheek with the back of one clawed finger.  


“No, you are, you silly thing, now drink!” she urged.  


With enormous effort and a loud outcry, he banished his demon. Miranda gasped to see his human skin feverishly red. His hair had turned dark grey, close to black. With a shaking hand, she tipped the edge of the vial at his lips. He downed the antidote in a few swallows. Then he closed his eyes and lay limp, panting.  


Miranda’s heart seemed to stop altogether as she waited to see if the antidote worked. Swift and earnest prayers swirled like wind-caught ribbons within her. She did not let go of his hand. Minutes passed and he breathed easier, until at last his fingers loosened on her hand and he fell asleep.  


He did not wake, but his breath was steady. For an hour she sat awake beside him, hoping, praying, and fighting fear. The redness across his body slowly faded, but his hair remained as grey as steel. Finally she could not hold back the desperate need for sleep any longer. After drawing a blanket over them, she snuggled up beside Vergil and surrendered herself to blank slumber.  


Her hand held fast to his, never letting him go.


	10. In Heaven's High Bower (Mission 10)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love to faults is always blind,  
> always is to joy inclined.  
> Lawless, winged, and unconfined,  
> and breaks all chains from every mind."  
> \- William Blake
> 
> EXCERPT:  
> Vergil grew painfully jealous of that swath of shadow, that splash of fortunate light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose this instrumental song (link below) as a lovely ambient accompaniment for this mission. It matches the mood so beautifully. Let it play on YouTube in the background as you read, if you like 💗😌 The final 3 minutes are absolutely touching.  
> [The Knowing by David Helpling & Jon Jenkins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEI2okD0pzc)

Vergil slowly opened his heavy eyes. At first his vision was blurred, but it soon cleared as his sight adjusted to the thick streams of bright moonlight falling through the windows. The feverish pain was gone from his body, but he felt a gaping absence beside him.  
Miranda was gone.  


He glanced about the room, searching for her. Everything was stiff, so he took extra care to adjust himself and fasten his pants. Weak and groggy, he took up the Yamato and journeyed barefoot through the corridors, his heart drumming wildly.  


The gentle splashing of bath water drew him to the guest bedroom where he had sheltered her before. The door was ajar. He leaned the Yamato against the wall. Swallowing hard, he dared to peek inside.  


An overwhelming surge of pleasant heat swirled through Vergil’s blood. Lips parted, eyes unwilling to blink lest she vanish like dreams he never knew, he drank of her beauty. Poetry incarnate. Far more stunning than Blake could have ever hoped to pen.  


Miranda stood beneath the full moon, her skin aglow, like a goddess unbound. Her hair, rich and dark and woven through with white silver light, fell in damp curling lushness down her back. Shadows caressed her legs, playing across her skin as she raised her hands to tousle her hair. The sheer grey camisole she wore lifted away from her navel, inviting the light and shadow to stroke her belly.  


Vergil grew painfully jealous of that swath of shadow, that splash of fortunate light.  


Dark and silhouetted were the nibs of her plump breasts, their subtle sway commanding Vergil’s gaze.  


She leaned back her head and sighed. Something clenched deep inside Vergil, threatening to release as something not unlike madness. His gaze fell to that unassuming bit of black cloth, which concealed that hallowed venture.  


Miranda had invited him there.  


She froze, sensing his presence, a small breath catching. Her back was to him now. The black cloth hugged her curves. Intimately. Vergil wished her free of it.  


Slowly Miranda turned, over her shoulder shyly peering. Her glistening gaze touched his. Vergil breathed, almost panting, through dry and parted lips. The heat within him flooded his face like storm waters.  


Language was in the rising warmth between them, the united longing shared across the room, the tingling beneath the skin.  


Her breath deepened, mirroring Vergil’s. He, awestruck and terrified, dared to draw nearer. Each step was more eager than the last.  


“Vergil, are you—?”  


His arms surrounded her and his lips imbibed the sweet fire that burned in their every unfettered kiss. One hand slid up her back beneath the camisole. Slowly he traveled, lightly, leaving a shivering trail of heat along her spine. The camisole was stripped away, revealing more of the beauty Vergil longed to taste.  


A gasp interrupted a vigorous kiss. The force of his tongue caught Miranda unawares. She tilted back her head. The aroused nibs of her breasts grazed the flushed skin of his naked chest. To the rhythm of her hurried sighs, his body tensed in the delicious ache of anticipation.  


He kissed her beneath her lifted chin. Then he wandered, tender and aimless, along her throat. She slid her arms across his shoulders and bestowed an ardent kiss of tongue and flame. A strained noise of pleasant struggle assured Vergil of wonders yet to come. He groaned in reply, and guided Miranda toward the bed.  


The heat beneath their skin rose to play, burning along lines of battle muscle and curves of feminine splendor. With a fearlessness that startled the breath out of him, Miranda opened the clasp of his pants, revealing him. He stripped. Her nails scraped slowly against his skin as a growl scraped out of his throat.  


Suddenly they were taken by a strange, heavy moment filled with the words they were yet unsure to speak. They gazed at one another, blush raging, desire building, standing together upon a precipice. Neither of them had ever felt so vulnerable, so open, so willing. Vergil touched Miranda’s cheek, softly and without demand. In that touch he offered all, for this was now beyond words. He wanted to give, to adore, but only act if Miranda wished it.  


_He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence._  


Surely some sort of pestilence would seize him if she refused him now.  


She smiled at him, shy and sweet, and guided his hand down her throat to her breast. He stroked her there, his fingers tracing the smooth, once-forbidden curve. She sighed when his thumb glided across the nib. Then she led him to her belly. His fingertip dipped into her navel. It was an invitation, for when his hand arrived at that damned black cloth she took her hand away.  


Miranda’s kiss was tender, patient, and reassuring.  


Vergil took to his task with nervous brow and parched tongue. A furnace flared beneath his cheeks. The kiss ended, but their lips remained poised for another, their breath uneven and anxious. He slipped his fingers in, caressing her hips. With reverent trembling, he pulled the cloth down, unveiling her. Their naked hips touched, and they gasped to feel the fullness of one another’s skin.  


Vergil ushered Miranda onto her back, afraid to seem monstrous in his eagerness.  


Miranda quickly dispelled that fear. Her fingers ran over his wide shoulders and down his back. Her skin was hot and smooth. Sweat formed between his shoulder blades and beaded upon his brow. He tasted it in the creases beneath her breasts.  


Hips rising and falling, she parted her legs for him.  


Aflame and fervent, he slid into her.  


Arching her back, Miranda released a loud gasp of surprise and pain-tainted pleasure. Wrapping her legs around him, she pulled him closer by the chain around his neck.  


Shedding the final dregs of hesitation, Vergil clamped a handful of pillow in one hand and clutched one of her breasts in the other. Grunting, he struck up a tender cadence. Miranda’s every breath was a pleading gasp. They gazed at one another as he bore down and his motivated thrusts intensified.  


Miranda moaned louder. “Oh…! Vergil…!”  


Vergil groaned harder. “Miranda…!”  


He struck like the Yamato. All purpose. All precision. All strength. They cried out together, savoring their simultaneous coming, clinging to the haven they had found in each other, a heated tangle of body, soul, and bliss.  


They held fast to that final reach. Miranda threw her arms around Vergil’s neck, gasping, and they strained in the ecstasy of their joining.  


Vergil bent his face to her neck, their bodies heaving. He remained inside her a moment more, dizzy and weightless in the grip of euphoria. Miranda’s fingers played in his hair. Her legs, trembling violently as if she’d been taken by a deadly shock, gradually loosened. She closed her eyes and smiled at the touch of his hot lips as he kissed her, sweet and gentle, upon her neck.  


He smelled of woodsmoke and vetiver, and in his embrace she burned in fierce azure fire. An enormous shudder ran through her like an aftershock. Vergil had moved the very earth. The sacred space in which he had delved pulsed, overwhelmed by his magnificent power. She would be limping come the morn, and she cared not a single whit.  


For a long, beautiful infinity they lay in the light of the moon. Miranda stroked Vergil’s hair while he lay holding her. His head rested between her breasts, eyes closed as he savored the most profound serenity he had ever known. Serenity he never thought possible.  


Tonight he was only human, and all the truth was spoken in the vigor of their touch.  


“Oh, sweet V,” she sighed, her heart fluttering in delight.  


Vergil lifted his face to meet her eyes. She smiled at him as she kept stroking his hair. She had mussed it quite terribly in the throes of their coupling, but for once, Vergil didn’t care. He gazed at her as if taken by a drunken stupor, awash in disbelief and warmth and a sense of wholeness.  


“What are you thinking?” she whispered.  


He placed a gentle kiss upon her breastbone, a slow and sweet caress. “Blake was right,” he said, his voice husky.  


“About what?” she asked.  


He met her eyes and recited, “‘The naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man.”’  


Beneath him he felt her body tremble anew and her heart patter swiftly again. She cupped his face and pulled him closer. They shared a long kiss, the taste and tender movement of each other’s lips, a heaven all itself.  


_Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined…_ Vergil finished the kiss and whispered, “‘Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.”’  


Miranda knew the line immediately. Her heart cantered faster as she stroked his cheek and quoted another piece of Blake, “‘I am in you and you in me…”’  


He smiled, sighing. Then he finished the quote, his gaze never straying from hers, “‘…mutual in divine love.”’  


Miranda trembled as she was overcome by the sudden blooming of a bliss she once believed belonged only in poetry. A joy that welled to glistening in her eyes.  


Tears gathered in Vergil’s eyes, too.  


Even a devil may cry.  


They smiled at one another, smiles that ached to reach the ends of the world. Precious and sacred, the night sheltered them with a full moon clothed in deep and beautiful black. Vergil and Miranda lost themselves in their love, a kiss for every star in the endless sky.  


Upon the dawn, as its gold pushed back the black, they lay entwined beneath a mantle of woven wool, Miranda nestled in Vergil’s protective arms.  


Vergil woke before she, but he lay in peace and stillness in the newborn sunlight, holding Miranda close in an embrace he never wished to break.  


_A heaven in a wildflower…  
_

_Infinity in the palm of your hand…  
_

_Eternity in an hour…_  


He had been trapped in the “grip of Hell’s despair,” but Miranda was _infinity_ , the _wildflower_ , for she indeed had built a heaven out of his rage and grief and horrific loneliness. With these thoughts, he held fast to what he had once believed he didn’t need, what he had once lost. He could have easily spent eternity in her embrace and it would indeed seem but a fleeting hour.  


“Miranda,” he whispered over her as she slept, “I think I understand this power now.” And without this true power, he may as well be a true devil. “Power must have purpose,” he swore in the silence of the dawn, “and my purpose is now far greater.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gorgeous Phase 3 of 5 of Vergil and Miranda by Chiharu-chin ❤️💙  
> 


	11. Broody Sweet (Mission 11)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the eye of the storm...
> 
> EXCERPT:
> 
> “She has nothing to do with our business,” Vergil said, lethal and cool. “You will not speak of her again.”  
> The ugly burn, the color of dried blood, that covered the left side of the man’s face churned and wavered, betraying his amusement. A grin pulled at his thin mouth.

Flames rose higher, hot and hateful. Books fell into ashes, stories vanishing forever. The glass in the windows split, the sound like the brief scream of a muted bullet. Black smoke coiled into a hulking beast, rising to the vaulted ceiling of the family library.  


Little Vergil huddled in a corner, his hands clutching the sheathed Yamato across his upraised knees. Always it was with him. Sweat snaked in rivulets down his face as the fire of Mundus’ wrath surrounded him. The young boy’s tears fell hot from his horrified eyes.  


“Dante!” he screamed into the smoke and blaze. “Mother!”  


His grip on the devil sword, the mighty gift from his father Sparda, tightened.  


He squeezed his eyes closed and remembered his father’s words. “You and Dante may be twins, Vergil, but you are the eldest. You are the one to protect your brother and your mother in my absence.”  


Gritting his teeth, Vergil climbed to his feet. A fit of coughing overcame him, but bravely he stepped through the smoke. He had ventured into the flames for his brother and mother, but he couldn’t find them.  


_I am a son of Sparda! This fire will not devour me!_  


The gluttonous inferno devoured the massive library with unabated hunger. As Vergil searched through the haze for the door, one of the towering shelves gave way.  


Vergil screamed and threw himself out of the way of its crushing weight. The Yamato left his grasp and scraped across the floor. The shelf crashed to the floor. Pages and ashes billowed upward, swirling into the ruinous smoke.  


“Mother!” he cried, tears spilling. He scrambled after the Yamato, coughing harder.  


He knelt on the floor, holding the Yamato to his chest, rocking back and forth. Growling bubbled in his throat. Five luminous blue swords manifested around him, bright as sunlight. They circled the weeping hybrid boy, slowly, and then faster. The growling grew as his pent up rage bloomed like a thousand ice-cold roses.  


A sudden flare of blinding light combated the fury of the flames. The half-demon, half-human child transformed into a beast of blue flame and dark steel. The black smoke rolled back as the power of Vergil’s demonic form manifested for the first time.  


His bestial cry shook the walls of the library. Shelves smashed onto the floor. Flames roared. The library collapsed all around him. He clawed through the smoke, swiped at the fire, and burst through the crumbling double doors. He fell into the courtyard.  
Glass shattered. Fire bellowed. Walls fell.  


_You cannot protect anything, Vergil, without immense power…_  


An intense heat gnawed at his belly, climbing into his chest. His heart boomed inside him, channeling his desperation, his rage, his reason. He stared at his clawed, scaly hands. The Yamato clattered to the cobblestones. He dropped to his knees.  


_I’m not strong enough. My power isn’t enough!_  


His mother screamed his name, her final breath—

Vergil gasped awake, bolting upright. Cold sweat lined his chest and brow. His lungs were tight and heavy. He gripped his mother’s amulet in an iron-firm fist. Even to swallow was painful. It felt as if his stomach were full of smoke and ashes.  


Miranda touched his bare back. Vergil flinched.  


“Sweet V?” she murmured sleepily.  


He couldn’t stop panting. It had been almost eleven years since that night, since the hellfire had destroyed his home, since the death of his mother.  


“You were dreaming?” she asked.  


He nodded, unable yet to speak.  


She sat up and snuggled close to him, looping her arm through his and leaning her cheek against his shoulder. His skin was cool. “Can you tell me what you dreamt?”  


Her warmth comforted him, and he began to breathe a little easier. He licked his dry lips. “It was about the night my mother died.” He drew in a long unsteady breath. “I could feel the burning of the flames…the rage of my demon…”  


“You mustn’t blame yourself for what happened to her,” she said.  


“I failed her, Miranda.” His voice was a guilt-ridden whisper. “I was powerless.”  


“Listen to me,” she soothed, gently turning his face to meet her gaze. “This weight isn’t yours to bear.”  


Grief and guilt filled his eyes. “Then why do I feel so heavy?”  


She pulled him down and kissed him. “You’ve been alone, sweet V. Loneliness is the weight of a silent world.”  


He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “How do you see me so clearly?”  


She moaned, a sound of sweet celestial music. “Perhaps it’s just destiny.”  


He kissed her. “The only home I’ve ever known was burned to the ground.” He gritted his teeth against the haunting pain. “I’ve been wandering for so long.”  


Miranda stroked his cheek and uttered with a smile, “I’ll be your home.”  


With an eager breath, he carried them deeper into their love as the late morning sunshine fell over them, chasing away Vergil’s nightmares. The sound of her hastening breath cracked the dark memories of his past. The melding of her body with his was the embracing of his soul. She was tangible peace, a place of rest, a sanctuary.  


Once they had cooled upon their descending, panting in each other’s arms, Miranda asked, “Shall I read to you?”  


Vergil brushed a tendril of her dark hair away from her sweat-dappled brow. A playful smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Please.”  


In a cascade of sunlight, they cuddled close and Miranda read from Blake, soft and calming. Vergil rested his head against hers and closed his eyes, concentrating only on the beautiful words and the presence of the beautiful woman curled up with him.  


He was almost asleep again when she whispered against his lips, “Rest, my V. I’ll make some tea.”  


He didn’t open his eyes, but only grunted and bobbed his eyebrows once in a drowsy reply. Miranda carefully climbed out of his embrace. He lay down, sighing. She pulled the blankets over him. After slipping into her dress, she quietly made her way to the kitchen. Dreams did not plague Vergil as he slept.  


Miranda returned a little while later to find him still asleep. Not wishing to disturb his tranquil rest, she set their tea aside, shed her dress again, and slipped back into bed with him. At her touch, he enveloped her in his arms without waking. She kissed him beneath his chin and lay in the stillness of the morning, warm in him. The sunshine was bright upon his hair, like fresh fallen snow. The tense frown he normally wore was nowhere to be found. When at last he stirred to waking, he smiled at her, his dimples deep, his eyes aglow.  


“Good morning again,” she whispered, her eyes sparkling.  


He kissed her, slow and sweet. “Good morning, my wildflower.” A dull pain suddenly slithered across the back of his skull. He grimaced.  


“It’s the effect of the antidote,” Miranda explained. “It will dissipate by tonight. I promise.”  


Vergil battled a difficult mix of feeling amazed and appalled. “You went to the Order’s research and development department, didn’t you?”  


Pursing her lips, she averted her eyes. “It was the only way to save you.”  


He gently brushed the back of his finger down her chin. “Miranda?”  


When she raised her eyes to him again, they were glossy. “I…was once part of that division.”  


Vergil was quiet for a long minute. _No, she could never be involved in sinister projects with infernal scientists!_ “You helped them manufacture demons—?”  


“No!” she said, terrified that he might misunderstand. “I only studied them. I passed the entrance tests when I was fourteen. I enjoyed the work, furthering my studies and feeding my fascination, but when the experiments became too questionable, straddling the line between right and wrong, I left.” She sighed, remembering. “That was barely a year ago.”  


Vergil understood perfectly now. Stroking her cheek, he said, “You made the antidote for me.”  


Falling into his eyes, she smiled and nodded.  


A beautiful, boyish smile bloomed, dimples deepening. Time ceased to be. Blush and sunshine, warm like grace. Every kiss was a piece of eternity.  


_I’m in love with her. She is rooted in me and I in her. Forever._  


Her fingertips traced his collarbone. “I can still feel you there.”  


He smiled again, mischievous and delicious. “I tried to be gentle.”  


“Did you?” she giggled.  


He shrugged, his playful smirk unfaded.  


“You almost broke the bed,” she whispered, blushing.  


He blushed too, pursing his lips. “Oh.”  


She cradled his face in her hands, tracing his dimples with gentle strokes of her thumbs. “I love you, sweet V.” During their loving in the night, he had exhausted her so profoundly that eventually all she moaned was “V.”  


He touched her nose with his. “I like that.”  


“Hmm?”  


“V.” His drowsy grin suddenly fell into a frown. “I’m not sweet, though.”  


She made a marvelous, happy noise. “Well, beneath all that silly broodiness you are.”  


He arched an eyebrow. “I’m broody?”  


“Oh yes!” she laughed.  


“Oh.”  


“It’s cute,” she whispered against his lips.  


“I do not wish to be thought of as cute,” he replied, his frown deepening.  


“You’re broody right now,” she remarked.  


“I’m not broody,” he argued, tart and pink. “I’m…”  


“Motivated?”  


His grin bloomed anew.  


She slid her leg between his. “Yes.” Her fingernails slowly raked down his chest. “You are.”  


With a playful grunt, he mounted her.  


She giggled. “The tea will get cold—”  


“I don’t want tea,” he growled, grinning and pressing against her. “I want you.”  


Flirtatious light danced in Miranda’s eyes. “Come, my V. Show me your motivation.”  


They laughed and smiled together in their pleasure. He nibbled her throat and teased her with gentle nudges of his hips. The strength of her legs surprised him like it had the previous night as she suddenly pulled him against her, beckoning him deeper. He discovered she was rather ticklish around her ears, and found delight in making her laugh.  


Vergil fought against the impending mission that would soon be set in motion. So he immersed himself in Miranda, body and mind, every moment and movement together motivated by this blossoming love between them.  


Temen-ni-gru could wait a while longer.

~ ALMOST A MONTH LATER ~

It was their third meeting. Vergil perused the old books along the towering shelves, his impatience growing. This library was deep beneath Fortuna Castle, tucked away like dangerous magics too sacred to destroy. Time was especially precious now, and Vergil loathed to waste it like never before as his days in Fortuna dwindled.  


Rarely now did he and Miranda not spend their nights together. She had indeed become his home. Yet tonight it was best that she remain in the city.  


Footsteps approached. Vergil’s lip curled. His skeleton key to Temen-ni-gru had finally arrived.  


“Quite the bookworm you are, son of Sparda,” the man sneered. His voice was deep and dark like the foul birthing pits of Hell. “Do books comfort you so?”  


Vergil closed his eyes, gathering his tolerance for the advent of superfluous prating.  


The man kept a wise distance, just beyond the reach of the Yamato. He evidently remembered Vergil’s threat during their last meeting.  


“Or perhaps you prefer the comforts of a certain sweet librarian?”  


The Yamato sang free. Vergil’s jaw clenched. The demon within him leapt to the underside of his skin, tingling for release. He slid his darkest scowl toward his collaborator. The tip of the Yamato gleamed in the lantern light.  


“She has nothing to do with our business,” Vergil said, lethal and cool. “You will not speak of her again.”  


The ugly burn, the color of dried blood, that covered the left side of the man’s face churned and wavered, betraying his amusement. A grin pulled at his thin mouth. His eyes, one brownish-red and the other greenish-blue, glinted with malice. A chuckle rumbled in his throat.  


Arkham was no better than any festering scum that crawled out of the rotted bowels of the underworld. How did he know of Miranda? The temptation to impale him right then and there was as strong as hellfire. Bloodstained books be damned.  


_But I need him. For now._  


“Do you have the translations we need?” Vergil asked, sheathing the Yamato. Arkham held a small unassuming book to his chest.  


“Of course,” Arkham replied, strolling past him. “We must begin the next phase very soon. Temen-ni-gru yearns to be reborn!”  


“How soon?” Vergil pressed, annoyed.  


Arkham was silent for a moment, fingering a few book spines. “Every spell must commence on the evening of a full moon. I have already initiated the first as you instructed. The next one is more delicate, and requires your inherited power to activate it.”  


Only three days.  


“You’ve yet to reveal where you wish to raise Temen-ni-gru,” Arkham said.  


Vergil glared at the dusty tomes lined neatly before him. “Redgrave City.”  


“Ah, your brother is still there, then.” Arkham’s grin was twisted and eager.  


“I’ve found the book you requested,” Vergil told him, and held out the tome stolen from the Order’s cathedral library. Arkham reached to take it, but Vergil pulled it back. “I want it returned.”  


Arkham scoffed and took the book. Grinning, he turned for the doors. “I shall meet you at the door of destiny beneath the next full moon in Redgrave City.” His footsteps faded, but before he vanished into the night he added, “Demons hunt you, son of Sparda. Are you strong enough to protect her?”  


Vergil’s gloved hand stiffened into a shaking fist around the Yamato.  


_No. Not yet._  


Three days.


	12. The Brink of Goodbye (Mission 12)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> “I don’t give a damn about what you want with me,” Vergil snarled. Cerulean light brightened along the length of the Yamato, exuding dense power like the weight of shattered empires. “You’ve brought harm to Miranda. That will not go unpunished.”  
> The wheel of glowing swords around him vanished too soon in a cloud of phantom glass. Vergil’s breath was still rather labored.  
> Dazran scoffed. “Tiring already? Miranda must find that frustrating.”  
> Vergil charged, a fiery comet of scorching blue. “Go to hell!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong language warning!

Tonight the silence of Fortuna Castle was different, odd, sharp. Upon leaving the underground library, Vergil paused in the center of the Grand Hall, closed his eyes, and listened. A soft cerulean glow bathed the Yamato, sheath and hilt. The flames in the scattered sconces flickered to death. Heavy, velvet darkness cloaked the hall, billowing like vengeful sea waves.  


Amidst the undulating cloak of shadow he suddenly felt a pall of impending despair fall over him. Aimless, distracted, he wandered. The upper library was naught but ancient pages and forgotten air. The dining hall was like a tomb for every appetite. The gallery glowed in the rich blue light of a single Gyro Blade, but like every portrait on the walls it too was dead.  


Vergil finally meandered back to the Master’s Chamber where he and Miranda spent their stolen hours together. Nothing glowed in the barren hearth. The tea service from last night sat undisturbed upon the table. Upon the rumpled bed lay the book of Blake they always read from…  


…and Miranda sat upon the edge, trembling and crying in the quiet.  


“Miranda?” He went to her, laid the Yamato aside upon the blankets, and wrapped her in his arms.  


“Oh, Vergil,” she whimpered, leaning into him. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was feeble beneath the weight of guilt.  


Vergil held her in vigilant love. “What happened?”  


She raised her tearful gaze to him, her heart pattering. “I’m so sorry.”  


“Why have you come?” he asked, frowning. “I told you it isn’t safe tonight.”  


Miranda drew in a sharp breath. “You should leave Fortuna! It’s not safe for you!”  


Vergil blinked, rather stunned. “What—?”  


“The Order is hunting you!” she said, frantic. “Please, my V, go before they find you!”  


He searched her face, his grey-blue gaze intense, and touched her cheek.  


She flinched, squeezing her eyes closed, and held her disheveled hair closer to her cheek. New tears slipped past her eyelashes.  


Vergil took her chin in his fingers. “Don’t be alone, Miranda.”  


She took her hand away from her cheek. He moved aside her hair. A large ugly smudge of black and purple marred her cheekbone, reaching halfway to her jaw. Vergil brushed his thumb over it as if caressing a wounded butterfly. Miranda winced.  


Rage tangled and twisted like flames in the depths of Vergil’s chest. “Who did this to you?” The bestial inflection of his devil darkened his voice.  


She threw her arms around his neck. “I want you to be safe, but I don’t want you to go!”  


Three days.  


The timing was painful and cruel.  


_I don’t want to say goodbye._  


Vergil pressed her close and fingered the disheveled blankets of their bed. The scent of plumeria clung to the aged fleece, a faint token of their loving the night before. His heart drummed as the memory warmed him, but then was stricken by a phantom dagger through his chest.  


An old enemy—fear.  


Her arms tightened around him. “This is my fault,” she whimpered. “My damned curiosity! Now I’ve endangered you—”  


“No, Miranda,” he insisted, and leaned his cheek against hers. Closing his eyes, he breathed her in, holding fast to her. “I regret nothing between us.” He kissed her, tender fire lacing his lips. “Do you?”  


A breath caught in her throat. “No!” She slid her arms around his neck again, never wanting to let him go. “Never!” She kissed him again. Vergil tasted salt on her lips. “I just want to protect you too.”  


They fell into another vehement kiss.  


Rasping roars rose out of the surrounding quiet, curtailing their moment.  


Anger and fear united to batter Vergil as a dozen gangly demons dripping in the blood of their sins brandished rusty scythes. The demon within Vergil, like a savage hound, rushed to the edges of his soul, motivated to wage war, to protect Miranda.  


He lifted her into his arms, safely laid her upon the bed, and then took up the Yamato. Sneering, he took his battle stance at the foot of the bed, his hand hovering over the Yamato’s hilt. The intruding demons lumbered toward him.  


Six bright blue blades appeared, spinning swiftly around Miranda, a deadly wheel of protection.  


The demons rushed at Vergil.  


With a laugh, he rushed at them, whirling the Yamato in destructive swings and powerful strikes. Demon blood splashed across the floor. Vergil made battle like a ballet.  


With every demon he destroyed, another rose to take its place.  


The Yamato kept shining, slaying, singing.  


Miranda watched, gaping in awe, as Vergil slaughtered the invaders. No matter the number, he slew them all, his battle cries ringing off the walls.  


Until one rusty scythe snagged his belly.  


Vergil cried out in pain, whirled, and severed the demon’s head. Heaving, he whirled again, his coat billowing, and commanded a volley of phantom blades to impale the last of them.  


Two dozen more bubbled and gurgled out of the floor.  


Vergil’s stance faltered. He was tiring.  


“Miranda!” The struggle was evident in his voice. “Go!”  


She did not argue and fled for the doors. Vergil held the demons back, cutting them down, raining storm after storm of summoned swords down upon them before they could reach her.  


He took a scythe through his chest. Roaring in rage and pain, he lashed out again, the Yamato’s bright steel skewering his opponent. Vergil gripped the crude metal and yanked it from his flesh. Tossing it aside, he slashed another foe to pieces.  


Down a distant hall, Miranda screamed.  


A fresh and fiery wave of motivation overcame him. A growl built in his throat as he gathered an enormous amount of power to bear. Releasing the vast sphere of destructive slashes, Vergil executed a perfect blast of death. The endless horde before him exploded in a gory barrage of slime, blood, and bone. Such a burst of concentrated power cost him a good deal of strength and stamina. Before another wave could rise and hinder him, he crashed through the chamber doors, panting, calling out Miranda’s name.  


A dark and devious chuckling led him to the torture chamber.  


“Vergil!” Miranda cried. She was trapped in a rusted gibbet in the center of the floor.  


He rushed to her. A fresh bruise and a spot of blood marked the corner of her mouth. He seethed, dark purple power radiating off his shoulders like dancing flames.  


“He followed me here!” she said, frightened.  


“Who?” he asked her in a lethal growl. “The scum will pay!”  


She reached through the ancient rusty bars and touched his face. “V—”  


A wave of blistering black energy crashed across the ceiling, cleaving every gibbet from its eroded chain.  


Gibbets exploded onto the stone floor. Bent bits of time-tarnished steel shattered and scattered. With the sheathed Yamato, Vergil deflected three stray shards, every parry like a blink of lightning.  


“Neither man nor devil can resist it.”  


Vergil’s scowl deepened. The Yamato sprang loose for combat at the quick flick of his thumb, ready to clash and cut.  


The voice was cracked and rough. Rage pooled into Vergil’s heart. The familiar voice was as welcome as the greasy scum scraped off the rotting tongue of Leviathan.  


“The allure that is the fragrant fruit called woman.” High above upon a jutting piece of broken stone stood Captain Dazran, dressed in a glow of power edged in blue and dark like oil at midnight. He grinned, vile and vain, down at Vergil and Miranda. “And you have fallen.”  


Six more blazing blue blades manifested, three on either side of Vergil, poised to impale. Vergil met Dazran’s haughty gaze with his own. His devil itched to be let off the chain.  


“You should be dead,” Vergil called.  


Dazran’s sinister laugh echoed around the chamber. He then dropped to ground level without even a wince of pain. A blink of confusion passed over Vergil’s face. No human could have survived such a lofty fall.  


“Yes,” Dazran replied, unhindered. “I should be.”  


“My apologies,” Vergil offered, sarcastic. “I shall swiftly amend my mistake.”  


The six blue phantom blades shot forward.  


Dazran brandished a pair of knightly swords, deflecting the blades of energy with ease. He missed one. It lodged itself in the center of his chest, piercing and splintering his white steel armor. With both hands he cracked open the chest plate as if tearing open his own rib cage. Blackish-blue light speared through the broken gap, radiating from his chest.  


Vergil stepped between Dazran and Miranda, shielding her.  


“The Order’s scientists thought I’d make a better prototype than a corpse.” Dazran broke off more pieces of his armor and tossed them to the floor. “The power residue you left in my flesh after your less-than-perfect strike in the library proved to be an interesting opportunity.” The power roiling in his chest surged like the churning of a black sea, stained in chaotic cobalt light. “This devil juice…” He raised his arms and flexed bared muscle. “…is quite invigorating.”  


Vergil sneered. “You think you stand a chance? You? A human living on borrowed time? Wielding stolen power? My power?” The Yamato came free of its sheath. It whirled, glinting in the torchlight, hissing through the cold air, and rested ready at Vergil’s side, exactly parallel to his fighting stance. He summoned four swords to shield him.  


Dazran cackled, a madman itching for a brawl. “Once I smear you into submission and deliver your corpse to the Order for analysis, His Holiness will surely grant me the title of Supreme General of the Holy Knights, and Miranda will be the first to experience all that I am now capable of.”  


“I don’t give a damn about what you want with me,” Vergil snarled. Cerulean light brightened along the length of the Yamato, exuding dense power like the weight of shattered empires. “You’ve brought harm to Miranda. That will not go unpunished.”  


The wheel of glowing swords around him vanished too soon in a cloud of phantom glass. Vergil’s breath was still rather labored.  


Dazran scoffed. “Tiring already? Miranda must find that frustrating.”  


Vergil charged, a fiery comet of scorching blue. “Go to hell!”  


In the half second before the Yamato plunged into Dazran’s chest, the mutated knight evaded the killing blow in a blur of black. Vergil spared a quick glance over his shoulder.  


Dazran grinned at him. He crossed his augmented swords and an unstable sphere of black energy gathered between the tips. He then hurled the massive blast at Miranda. As it hurtled toward her, it took the shape of a grid-lined sphere, sparking like lightning, threatening to electrify the cage.  


The piercing sound of her horrified scream ripped into Vergil’s chest like serrated fangs.  


He whirled, summoning a new blazing wheel of phantom blades to shield Miranda. The ghostly replicas of Force Edge burst to life around her, holding Dazran’s attack at bay. The black net did not dissipate. It seemed to wait until Vergil’s summoned swords failed.  


He focused a piece of his mind to maintain the protective blades around Miranda.  


_They will not waver!_  


Dazran rushed at Vergil this time, roaring. Smaller spheres of the same mutated, false power shot at him like sorcerous bullets.  
Vergil deflected them easily, spinning the Yamato in a swift, tight circle, scoffing. He allowed Dazran to close in, waiting, patient. A wicked grin pulled at his lips.  


The Yamato screamed in a blinding flash of silvery blue.  


Dazran blurred away again, laughing. Vergil understood more clearly now. The knight had not his ability to teleport. Only speed.  


One of the phantom blades protecting Miranda shattered.  


_Damn it! Focus!_  


Dazran darted side to side, brandishing his twin swords. The Order’s insignia glowed against the skin of his skull. Black-blue power surged through his burly arms, feeding into his weapons like fuel, but he never came close enough to use them.  


“Why so slow?” Dazran mocked. “My heralds were mere Abyss class.”  


Vergil’s sword arm shook. _He sent those demons specifically to weaken me!_  


Three more of the phantom blades shattered. Vergil panted harder. Sweat slithered down his neck.  


Dazran blinked to the cage, dismissing the electric sphere, and ripped the lock and door off with his gloved hands. He snatched Miranda by her throat. Clawing at his hard fingers, she gasped for breath.  


“Let her go!” Vergil screamed.  


“Ah, so she’s not just some bedtime toy, is she?” Dazran loosened his grip on Miranda. She gasped for breath. He raked his lewd gaze over her. “You love her.” He looked back at Vergil, who panted in fear for Miranda’s life. “So devils can love.”  


“She has nothing to do with this!” Vergil shouted. “This battle is between you and me!”  


Dazran laughed. “Is she fun to fuck?”  


Vergil’s lip curled and his blood boiled.  


“Does she scream when she comes?” Dazran tightened his hand on Miranda again. Malice filled his laughter. “I love it when they scream.”  


Vergil bared his gritted teeth. The fury filled his devil, filled his heart, writhing for release.  


“Will you scream now for your monster mate?” Dazran pressed the sharp tip of one of his swords to the edge of Miranda’s right breast. “The Order shall excommunicate you, Miranda, for the heresy of bestiality. It may be worthy of death.” He scraped the sword tip across her belly, and then turned back to Vergil. “Submit, demon, or I’ll save His Holiness some time and pass judgment upon her now.”  


“The only judgment rendered here shall be mine!” Vergil triggered his devil, and with the last blast of his strength, he surged at Dazran for one final attack.  


The Yamato glowed blue, then purple, white sparks jolting along its length, a burning light of destruction.  


Miranda screamed.  


Dazran’s grin crumbled as the Yamato impaled him, to the hilt, through his chest.  


Panting, holding his demonic form, Vergil glowered at the mutated knight, watching the life leave his eyes.  


“You will never touch her again.” Sharply, vengefully, he twisted the Yamato.  


Dazran coughed and gurgled. Blood oozed out of his mouth. The body dropped to the floor.  


The Yamato returned to the scaly sheath on Vergil’s demonic left arm. Blue electric power zapped and pulsed around his body. His breath came heavy, tired.  


“Vergil.” Miranda reached for his clawed hand.  


He let her take it, and as her human fingers closed on his scaly hand, his demon was dismissed and he collapsed to his knees.  


Vergil ran his hands into his hair, bowed his head, and sobbed.  


“Miranda, I’m sorry!” he cried, clenching his fists in his hair.  


She knelt before him and gathered him into her arms, holding him as he cried. He clung to her this time, desperate, as if she might be ripped away from him at any moment.  


“I’m too weak!” He buried his face in her shoulder. “I almost lost you!”  


“Vergil,” she soothed, tears filling her eyes. “You’ve done nothing but protect me.” Her fingers stroked his neck, comforting him. “Stop tormenting yourself.” Her voice trembled. “Please.”  


“I need more power,” he muttered, his resolve returning, defiant of his failure.  


Miranda shook her head. “No, sweet V. Just let go.”  


Vergil gripped her tight. _Temen-ni-gru… My father’s power… Without it I cannot protect you…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Let her go!" ... Where have we heard this line before, and who was in danger then? 😉 Like Father. Like Son.


	13. The Bower Forsaken (Mission 13)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> “I love you, Miranda.” [Vergil] stroked her cheeks. They were soft like plumeria petals. “I promise you that.”  
> She nodded, her smile struggling to unfurl like a wilting sunflower reaching for the sun. “I know you do.” Slowly, she ran her hands down his naked chest. Beneath her palms he was flushed, the otherworldly heat of his devil hiding in the hard muscular lines of his body. Behind the masculine charm beat the scarred heart of a boy striving to survive. Miranda wept to have failed to prove to him that love was the only true power.  
> “So love me, Vergil.” His coat fell away from her and she pressed her hips to his. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow.”

~ THREE NIGHTS LATER ~

Falling in love with Miranda was the only battle Vergil had ever fought and felt happy to have lost. Standing alone along the seashore, he silently scrabbled for words. All the poetry and literature he had ever read seemed paltry, pathetic, foolish. No amount of silken sonnets nor velvet whispers would adequately convey what he felt for Miranda. 

The hush and sigh of the sloshing sea chilled him. The sun nestled into the glimmering waves, drowsy, orange, and submissive to the full moon that prepared to rise. Vergil longed for Miranda's warmth, the music of her voice, the feathery fire of her touch. Pleasure prickled his skin as he remembered her hair falling away from her breasts, her back arching, her entire body clenching as she swayed atop him, and the amorous sighs between them afterward as they drifted into sleep together… 

Sea foam splashed against his worn leather boots. Vergil swallowed, stoic yet struggling. The rhythm of his heart was wild and painful. The demon, restless and scaled in shadow, stalked him, circling his soul. By his demon and power of his mighty father would he secure that which mattered most. 

_I go to take what is mine._ Miranda had pleaded often with him to forsake his mission, but she did not understand. _Unleashing the underworld upon the human world is but collateral damage. The cost is cruel, but it must be paid. There is no other way._

The perfume of plumeria rode upon the salty breeze. Vergil's heart clenched. Without a second thought, he glanced about the beach, searching for Miranda, but he was alone. 

_Don't be alone…_

He frowned across the water, already trapped in the coming dismay. There was no turning back. The humanity that Miranda had rekindled in his heart was preemptively bruised. He loved her. The only regret he suffered now was having to leave her. Of course he meant to return to her, but the path to Sparda's power was not precisely known. A heavy mist of uncertainty blanketed the dark road before him. The underworld was a realm of chaos and blood. The only surety was that Vergil had yet to face his greatest challenge. He welcomed the test, beckoned the opportunity to prove his power. 

All these complicated feelings hung on a scale, each trying to outweigh the other. 

_I am worthy of the power of my father Sparda, and with it, I shall be worthy of Miranda's love. Without power, I am nothing._

Watching the sun descend into the glittering dark water, he basked in the memory of his first beautiful black night in Miranda’s arms. Perhaps it was masochistic to torment himself like this, but he wanted to engrave every moment he had spent with her in his memory. Everything. 

The evening light was cold and ominous. He had little time. As he strode back along the sand, a cluster of wild plumeria caught his eye. The Yamato slid free, and he carefully trimmed a handful of the pink and white blossoms with a precise slice of light. 

Cradling them in the palm of his hand, Vergil made his way back to Fortuna Castle. 

*** 

Miranda was waiting for him in the Master’s Chamber, her hood let down, her coiling hair falling free. She sat near the empty hearth, indulged in Sparda’s journal opened across her lap. Upon hearing him enter, her face, lovely and aglow, lifted from her reading. 

Vergil laid the plucked plumeria on a bookshelf. 

Setting the journal aside, she went to him, a lightness in her step, and greeted him with a tender kiss. Miranda sighed as their lips parted, a dream drifting on her breath. “You smell like the sea.” 

“I went there to think.” He entangled his fingers in her hair. The bruise Dazran had inflicted was healing well. Hardly a smudge of abuse remained. 

“To brood, you mean?” She cocked an eyebrow at him, smirking. 

He blinked at her, drowsy and drunk on her beauty. _To prepare._

“You seem distracted tonight,” she murmured, searching his eyes. “Something’s troubling you.” She took his hand and found it stiff and cool. 

Vergil revered words but used them sparingly. Miranda had learned to read him like a cryptic and pensive poem. It took special concentration, dedication, and willingness to search beyond the guarded surface. 

_He’s isolating himself._

A painful pattering claimed her heart. “Why do I suddenly feel so far away from you, V?” 

He dragged a long, hard sigh into his aching chest. His thumb followed the plump curve of her bottom lip. He leaned in and took her mouth in an uncertain kiss. It felt clumsy, almost resentful, but he alone was to blame. Would he ever kiss her again after tonight? 

Their eyes met. Vergil’s seemed more grey than blue. The color of prehistoric ice rather than a boundless sky. Miranda’s smile wavered. The silence between them was heavy, almost screaming. He gently hooked a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear, his gaze unable to break away. 

Miranda raised her lips to his again and whispered, “Come back to me, Vergil.” 

Conflicting desires welled within him, furrowing his brow, churning his stomach. The flutter of her breath across his lip enticed him to remain walled inside their love. Was it not simpler this way? His fingers traveled the curve of her thigh, stroked her hip, and slid across the small of her back. 

Miranda sighed, a song of longing. “Where are you?” 

He sighed too, the echo of an ominous choice. “I’m lost.” 

Cupping his face, she pressed closer, her two-toned eyes searching him. He plunged into the caramel and gold. “You are not alone,” she promised. “I’m here, always beside you.” 

The dip of her nubile waist was a lovely place of rest. Closing his eyes, he suppressed the tears. The sun sank into the mountains, the orange-purple light bleeding down the cold stone. The full moon would soon rise out of its colorful death. 

Miranda pulled him closer for a kiss. This one tasted like fear. He held her to his chest and felt her shudder against him. The opulent shape of her breasts stirred the embers below his belly into flames. When her fingers scraped through his hair he moaned. He shed his coat. 

_I’m running out of time!_

Wishing to drown in her, he urged Miranda against a bedpost, panting. The buttons barricading her breasts frustrated him. She giggled over his struggle, raising her arms and clasping the bedpost behind her head. 

Vergil’s gaze flicked to hers, and he flashed her an unsteady grin. 

Raising her knee, she caressed the excitement building between his legs. Disgruntled by her wardrobe, he ripped off the last few buttons. After discarding his gloves, he opened her dress, parting the crimson folds like drapery. Miranda panted in aching expectation, sliding her leg over his hip. He clawed off his vest as if it were a hunter’s snare. Grasping her thigh, he thrust himself against her, impatient. 

Smiling, she let down her arms, threw back her shoulders, and let her dress crumple to the floor entirely. Equally impatient, she stripped him of his belt with an earnest yank. 

The demon residing outside Vergil’s human reasoning inhaled the primal scent of sex as Vergil disrobed, and it nearly broke free of its tether in blind fervor. 

Vergil’s right hand, clutching her thigh, morphed into leathery scales and ironclad claws. 

Miranda’s moan devolved into a shriek of pain and fright. 

_Damn it!_

He wrenched himself away from her, staggering back, his naked chest heaving. Miranda’s blood stained his devil claws. Gasping and gripping his scaly wrist, he looked at her leg. Blood trailed in five wavering stripes down her skin. 

“Miranda, I’m sorry!” he pleaded, aghast at what he’d done. Once his demonically clad hand was human again, he rushed back to her, dropping to his knees. “It was an accident!” 

_I failed to control my devil!_

“I’m all right, sweet V,” she said, trying to smile for his sake, but it quickly contorted into a flinch. 

Disgrace and contempt rose inside Vergil like a slavering beast, bred of guilt and shame. He carefully plucked her up and set her on the bed, ignoring inevitable bloodstains. After fetching a damp cloth, he pressed it to her wound. His mouth curled in remorse. 

Miranda touched his arm. He shook with self-inflicted scorn. 

Such irony. To fight so hard to keep her from harm only to harm her in the heat of their passion. 

_Power is the only answer._ “I have to leave.” 

Miranda’s heart curled into a knot. Forgetting her wound, she moved closer and rested her hands on his hips, her eyes pleading. “Vergil, no, please don’t go!” 

The pain was a flame, savage and cold. It coiled around his lungs, stealing his breath, grotesque and cruel. He dropped the bloodstained cloth and took her hands in his. 

“Dazran is dead!” Her words were rushed. “We can be more careful now. We can be tucked away, far above the sea. The Order won’t find us. You don’t have to leave!” 

Vergil’s mouth was dry. “Miranda, you know I will not hide from my enemies.” 

She pursed her lips to hold back a sob. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head. “You still intend to raise Temen-ni-gru.” 

He caressed her cheek and whispered, “Look at me.” 

Opening her eyes again, she met his fierce gaze. 

“I cannot be swayed from this. I will take my father’s power.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. The sweat on her skin made his tongue tingle. 

“But V…” 

Words were mere shadows of his motivation, proving ineffective. He climbed onto the bed with her, nestled himself between her bare legs, and scattered hot kisses across her body. 

“Vergil…” He nibbled the edge of her breast. “Please don’t…leave me…” He moved down to her hip, his mouth caressing. She panted harder. “Vergil…” His lips fondled the bloody marks on her thigh, every kiss an apology. The tip of his tongue invoked shivers. “Oh my V…” 

“My power will be absolute,” he murmured between kisses as he traveled back to her parted mouth. Love and power mingled in his words, his voice, his blood, arousing him. The hard, impressive length of him was primed to pleasure her. “I will prove that I am a true son of Sparda.” 

Miranda turned her face from him, tears rising. “Stop.” 

The broken word tumbling out upon her heartbroken breath sapped his vigor. 

“The demon who would be king,” she uttered, despairing. 

“Miranda, I do not seek dominion.” He kissed her beneath her ear. “Only power.” 

She shivered, fear and pleasure mingling, and turned back to him. “Your father _surrendered_ his power to protect humans.” 

Vergil glowered, resentful. “With the power he cast aside _I_ will protect _you_!” 

“From what?” she asked, exasperated. “Hell is sealed away, but you go to render your father’s sacrifice meaningless!” 

Despair wrapped icy iron fingers around his heart. He shook his head. “It seems you can’t understand after all.” 

“No, Vergil, _you_ don’t understand!” she sobbed, shaking. “I love you! Now! As you are in this moment!” 

The frustration mounted, silent tremors running through him. Could he not somehow make her understand? “Miranda, as I am now I cannot protect our love! I cannot love you and refuse to gain power great enough to keep you safe!” 

“You already have, Vergil!” she pleaded, and cradled his handsome face in her trembling hands. “You can slay demons with but a strike of light, but it’s not enough for you.” She ran her thumb across his cheekbone. Her mouth quivered. “Can you not be happy here with me?” 

He pressed his body against her, willing her to feel the reasons he’d carried for so long. Carried in his very blood. His demon blood. The reasons for his need for more power. He touched his forehead to hers. Through gritted teeth he confessed in a strained whisper, “I am not worthy like this.” 

Miranda’s breath snagged, bewildered. “Not worthy?” 

Tears stabbed his eyes. He crushed them closed. “I don’t care what I have to do! I need more power! I must prove my worth!” 

Her fingers fondled the back of his neck. “Oh, Vergil, you’re wrong.” She kissed his lips, light as leaves. “You don’t need to prove anything. Least of all to me.” 

They gazed at one another. Sorrow clung to Vergil’s eyes. Resolve flattened his beautiful mouth. The lie of his lack darkened the joy of their intimacy. Miranda missed his dimples, those endearing symbols of happiness and life. They’d been hidden as of late. 

“I love you,” she breathed against his lips. Her fingers combed back through his hair, trying to soothe him. “Is that not enough?” 

Vergil avoided her eyes. He ran his fingertips across the womanly muscle of her belly. He let go of a heavy sigh, shuddering. 

_I won’t lie to her. I can’t lie to her._

He looked at her and let the tears come. “No,” he answered in a fragile breath. “I’m sorry.” 

Miranda’s heart crumbled to pieces like dying embers, savaged by the wild animal that was Vergil’s brutal honesty. She stared at him, tears flooding her eyes anew. 

“I’m sorry you don’t understand—” 

“Get off me,” she whimpered, pushing at his chest. 

He did, stunned as if she’d slapped him across the face. Tearing herself from him, she went to the empty hearth. Pressing her hands to her mouth, she wept. The shards of her shattered heart echoed off the walls of their hideaway. 

Vergil sat on the edge of their bed, leaned on his knees, and hung his head. For a handful of time they kept themselves apart until Vergil could bear her crying no longer. He came behind her and reached out to finger her hair. She flinched at his touch, a thorn puncturing his heart. 

“You once told me that your time in Fortuna is limited.” The tears in her voice scalded him. “Every time you hold me I tell myself not to think about it. It’s haunted me since the night you first kissed me.” 

Vergil thought back to their earliest meetings, those secret moments of stealing glances and hovering in heated curiosity. Aged pages, smiles, and rhyme. Blush and bravery. Skin and moonlight. He took his coat from the floor and set it over her shoulders. She accepted it in silence. He lifted her hair and let it flow over the rich and radiant blue fabric. 

“I thought I could persuade you to forsake this ambition.” Her voice faltered. “Perhaps I’m as foolish as you.” 

A fist formed at his side. “You cannot ask me to throw away everything I’ve been striving for!” 

She turned to face him. Tears glistened on her cheeks. “I’m asking you to choose love instead.” The pleading expression she wore stole the oxygen out of his defensive ire. 

“My love alone cannot protect you—” 

“Your so-called need for power is an obsession, Vergil!” she cried. “It frightens me!” 

Vergil’s heart lunged. _I frighten her?_

He touched her cheek, his eyes earnest. “I’m coming back.” 

She laid her hands on his bare chest and bit her lip. “What if you don’t?” 

Vergil cupped her face and kissed her. Oh he would miss her lips, the heat they made together, her spirit that rejuvenated him, her sharp mind, and the sound of her voice as she read of the moon and the dark and eternity. 

“I love you, Miranda.” He stroked her cheeks. They were soft like plumeria petals. “I promise you that.” 

She nodded, her smile struggling to unfurl like a wilting sunflower reaching for the sun. “I know you do.” Slowly, she ran her hands down his naked chest. Beneath her palms he was flushed, the otherworldly heat of his devil hiding in the hard muscular lines of his body. Behind the masculine charm beat the scarred heart of a boy striving to survive. Miranda wept to have failed to prove to him that love was the only true power. 

“So love me, Vergil.” His coat fell away from her and she pressed her hips to his. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow.” 

Vergil took her into her arms and unleashed not the power of his demon, but the power of his love for this one significant woman. In another grand irony, she held power of him. No one else ever would. Loyalty was written upon his lips. Protection swelled in the hot spring of his blood. Entangled, Vergil and Miranda spent the last of the dying light of dusk in the anguish and imperfections they shared. Buried deep inside each other was that missing piece the other failed to see. 

As they whispered of their fears and desires, the full moon climbed into the sky. 

*** 

The moon was like white sunlight, casting shadows before Vergil as he strode cloaked once again through the streets of Fortuna. Emptiness had never felt so tangible. Miranda had looked perfectly peaceful in her sleep as he dressed to leave. The motivation burned within him. His demon fed upon it like a panther upon its prey. He let the demon reign. The love he bore for Miranda was locked away in a distant recess of his human heart, and there he left it, buried safe and sacred. Temen-ni-gru was near. All would be set right once Sparda’s power was in his possession. 

_Nothing shall stand in my way. Not fear. Not Arkham. Not even my own brother._

Setting his determination, he departed Fortuna on a wind of resolve, armed with the knowledge he had sought. The Order of the Sword knew well the history of the underworld and of his father’s feats. Vergil was convinced Miranda knew all of it the best. The people seemed to revere Sparda in honest faith like Miranda did, despite any sinister projects, but they were ignorant of the dark knight’s rising son. 

“Well, I can’t exactly call them misguided.” The wind lifted the edge of the tattered cloak concealing him. “But soon they shall know this devil’s power. A power greater than they ever imagined. The power of a son of Sparda.” 

_You shall know it too, Miranda. Then you will finally understand._

*** 

The Master’s Chamber brightened as dawn broke over Fortuna Castle, pouring sunshine through the windows. Miranda lay tangled in the bedsheets, her hair tangled worse. The morning air was cool upon her naked skin. Sighing, she rolled over to snuggle against Vergil. 

He wasn’t there. 

He had always been beside her when she woke. Instead, a clump of plumeria lay upon his pillow. It had begun to wilt. 

Heart banging inside her breast, she sat up and glanced about the chamber, searching for him. “Vergil?” 

A vast silence screamed through the castle. 

Miranda scrambled out of bed and into her dress. The lack of the few buttons Vergil had destroyed in his vehemence branded her indecent, but she paid no heed. 

“Vergil!” she called again and again as she hurried through the halls. The library was empty, a dead city of abandoned knowledge. If he was not in the Master’s Chamber or the library… Tears blurred her eyes and cracked her voice. “Vergil!” 

Her stomach suddenly churned like a mooring line tossed on a choppy sea. Leaning against a column in the library, she put a hand to her belly and closed her eyes. A wave of nausea swept over her. 

“Oh…” she moaned. Had she eaten spoiled fish? She returned to the Master’s Chamber and laid down on the bed. The very thought of food summoned a new rush of dizziness. It did not ebb. Every time she tried to stand, her stomach tumbled and flopped. The nausea kept her off her feet for half the day. 

Upon waking from a brief, light sleep, a startling, exciting, frightening thought surged through her. 

_My bleeding is a little late, but…_

It was unusual. In her unrelenting ardor for her beautiful devil boy, she hadn’t given it much thought. Panic nipped at the edges of her heart. 

Her hand slid over her belly. The gagging odor of dust, the earthy scent of sun-kissed stone, and the sharp tang of bloodstains turned her stomach in vicious spirals. She moaned, lightheaded and sick. 

_Am I…?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leaving...  
> 


	14. Maternal Motivation (Mission 14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXCERPT:
> 
> “Tell me.” Miranda flinched. The baby squirmed well and wild as if it knew its life was in danger. “A boy or a girl?”  
> Kassia rolled her eyes. “Male.”  
> Tears welled in Miranda’s eyes. The delicate smile fluttered again on her lips.  
>  _Vergil…We have a son…_

Kassia was Miranda’s only hope. It had been eight agonizing days since Vergil left her heart in ruins, yet a spark of hope remained. The nausea spells did not diminish. Still no monthly bleeding either. Too often now she was compelled to flee the library, abandon her duties to be secretly sick in the manicured foliage out in the cloister. Most solid food refused to stay down no matter what she attempted to eat. Trying to sleep seemed a waste of effort. The other librarians noticed her decline in health, the pallor that gradually drained the rosiness from her cheeks. They cast suspicious frowns upon her and whispered amongst themselves.  


The popular gossip was that before his mysterious demise, Dazran had finally had his way with Miranda and that the humiliation was making her ill. Now, she avoided her fellow librarians, no longer stayed to read like she once did, and her attendance in the mess hall was seldom.  


Finally, her superiors insisted that she sequester herself in her sleeping quarters and sent for a physician on her behalf. Though it took some persuading, they agreed to her plea for Kassia on account of their long-term friendship.  


Cold sweat covered Miranda’s quivering body as she moaned and writhed in bed, waiting for the only person she could trust. Breathing fast and shallow, she closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her belly.  


Kassia arrived in the late afternoon. Eyes widening at Miranda’s condition, she shut the door and rushed to the bedside.  


“Kassia!” Miranda sobbed.  


“Blessed Dark Knight, Mira,” Kassia swore, frowning. “You’re horribly pale!” She set her leather case upon the bedside table and searched her examination instruments. “Why did you summon me? This is not my expertise. You should see a proper physician.”  


Miranda grabbed Kassia’s wrist, white-knuckled. “I can’t trust anyone else!”  


“I erased the access record when you came to the lab weeks ago, don’t worry—”  


“The system still recognizes my biometrics.” Miranda was dangerously close to hyperventilating. “Why? The Order will know I was there! No one can know!” Tears poured down her cheeks.  


Kassia bit her lip as if she’d been caught in a lie. “I never erased your biometrics when you left R&D. Only your high security clearance codes. I thought retaining some permissions might assist your library research.” She sighed. “I was bitter about you leaving. I didn’t want to erase the data in case you changed your mind and came back.” Kassia squeezed her friend’s shaking hand, remembering how close they once were. Miranda squeezed back. Kassia smiled. _I miss those days._ “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Now, Mira, tell me what’s wrong.”  


Miranda gathered a breath, wincing. “I think I’m pregnant.”  


Kassia’s hand loosened on Miranda’s and her mouth fell slack. “How sure are you?”  


“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. My stomach is in constant turmoil!” She panted through the reasoning. “…and I haven’t bled this month.” Her face contorted as nausea slammed her again.  


“Then the first thing we should do is get some essential nutrition in you.” Kassia chose a vial and pulled a clear solution into a syringe. As she injected the serum into Miranda, she pushed aside her burning question regarding the potential father and contemplated further necessities. “I can provide an examination to determine for certain, but you must come to my lab.”  


Miranda gasped. “I can’t take that risk, Kassia!”  


“What is there to risk?”  


Miranda pressed her hands to her wet cheeks. “My baby.”  


Kassia narrowed her eyes. “Why would the Order be interested in your baby, assuming you are indeed pregnant?”  


Clutching her belly, Miranda hesitated as second thoughts converged. “Never mind.”  


Kassia sighed. “Is it Dazran’s?”  


“No!” Miranda blurted, like a curse, her cheeks flaming.  


Kassia lifted her hands, placating. “Some acolytes are suspecting that he—”  


“It’s not true!” Miranda covered her mouth.  


Kassia put a hand on her shoulder. “You should have a full examination first before we jump to any conclusions. Perhaps you simply have a virus.”  


“And the absence of my bleeding?”  


“Could be stress. Mira, I’m a scientist. I weigh all the evidence and run all the tests first. I do not assume.”  


Miranda wiped the sweat from her brow. “I’ll go under cover of night.”  


“I’ll come fetch you after moonrise.” Kassia assembled her supplies and locked the case. “In the meantime, try to rest. That serum will do some good.”  


Miranda nodded and closed her eyes.  


Once Kassia had gone, Miranda slid her hands slowly over her belly.  


A precious flutter brushed against her palm.  


***  


Faint and cold, Miranda panted too hard and fast. Kassia recoiled at the sight of Miranda’s bared belly.  


Jagged lines branched out from her navel like crooked ivy, spreading across her abdomen in a black web. Miranda was already showing, subtle but noticeable.  


“Oh, Mira,” Kassia breathed, awestruck.  


Miranda glanced down and gasped, scrambling up onto her elbows. “What’s happening to me!”  


“Lie still.” Kassia pressed her shoulders back down onto the examination table. “Your heart rate is too high. Try to relax.” She draped a heavy, viscous sheet, like a slab of gel, over her abdomen and went to assess the screen. Her fingers danced across the glass, inputting codes. The machine’s intended use was for the detailed analysis of demon physiology. Power signature, cell count, blood type, bone structure, everything. It would serve well enough as an ultrasound to reveal Miranda’s human womb.  


Suffocating minutes shuffled through the silence.  


Kassia gawked at the screen. “You’re right.”  


Miranda sighed, a small smile rising. _I’m carrying Vergil’s child!_  


Kassia’s eyes grew wide as her equipment beeped a steady rhythm while processing its initial findings. “I’m picking up…a faint power signature…” A disturbing excitement glistened in her gaze. “Cell structure is abnormal…” She glanced at Miranda, mouth agape, caught between abhorrence and amazement. “Demonic DNA.” The screen beeped again at a different pitch. Kassia glanced back at the screen, studying a few scans. “It’s fully formed, but it’s not too large. I think I can remove it fairly easily.”  


A jolt of dread kicked through Miranda’s heart. “Remove it?”  


“I’ve extracted demon viscera many a time.” Kassia rummaged in drawers for a scalpel, forceps, a suctioning device, and a tinted jar. “It’s a similar method. I can give you something to numb the pain and make you drowsy during the procedure.” She bustled about the lab, fetching sterile containers of various sizes, surgical gloves, and syringes. “I’d tranquilize you entirely except that you may need to push toward the end.”  


Miranda pressed her knees together. “What are you doing?”  


“Mira, you needn’t be ashamed.” Kassia took her hand, offering a sympathetic smile. “No one will know you were raped.”  


Miranda yanked her hand away. “I was not raped.”  


Kassia gawked at her, and then the horror and disgust wrinkled her nose and brow. “You made love to a demon of your own free will?”  


It was not shame that plagued Miranda. Only fear for her child. “Is it a boy or a girl?”  


“It doesn’t matter!” Kassia retorted, grimacing. “It’s a _demon_ , Mira, and it will kill you if I don’t abort it now. The course of its development thus far is equivalent to a human fetus at three months.”  


_Three months? It’s not yet been two since Vergil and I first…_  


“Based on my years of research, demons have an accelerated gestation period.” Kassia was nearly mad as she rambled, her horror mutating into a sickening enthusiasm. “Judging by my initial calculations, it’s powerful for a hybrid. I’ve never seen the like! What kind of demon sired this creature? Your human body will likely deteriorate as the pregnancy continues. You’re barely avoiding going into shock right now. You won’t survive the birth, but—”  


“Enough!” Miranda shouted.  


“What kind of demon did you let into your bed!” The horror of fornicating with a hellish monster had drained entirely from her face. Her eyes were bright and eager for all the details, like a child told she could have all the sweets she wanted.  


“Tell me.” Miranda flinched. The baby squirmed well and wild as if it knew its life was in danger. “A boy or a girl?”  


Kassia rolled her eyes. “Male.”  


Tears welled in Miranda’s eyes. The delicate smile fluttered again on her lips.  


_Vergil…We have a son…_  


Kassia muttered to herself as she tapped away at her screen. “So much research could be gleaned from such a specimen!” She glanced at Miranda. “I’ll have the elixir ready in a few minutes. The abortion won’t take long. The fetus is lively, but I can sedate it first—”  


The slab of gelatin slapped onto the floor. “You will do no harm to my son!”  


Confusion clouded Kassia’s face. “Mira, it’s a demon—”  


“This is my baby!” Miranda shouted between heavy breaths. “I love my baby and I love his father!”  


Kassia stared at her, confounded. “Where is he now, hm?” The sarcasm dripped thick like blood. “Your demon lover?”  


Miranda’s breath snagged, heart hitching. “He’s coming back.”  


“Mira, don’t be naive! You bedded a monster!”  


“Was Sparda a monster?”  


Kassia opened her month to object, but stopped to think. “Sparda was different—”  


“So are others, Kassia,” she pressed. “You assume too quickly. For a _scientist_.”  


Kassia’s stomach twisted in shame. Quickly she shifted the topic before she felt irrevocably foolish. “The Order will excommunicate you. Everyone in Fortuna will brand you a whore. Your pregnancy will either kill you or condemn you!”  


“I don’t care!” Miranda cried, mustering her strength. Shadows clung to her eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks.  


Kassia took her by the arms. “Mira, if you die then your baby dies too.”  


“So I should just kill him now?” Miranda glared at her friend, heartbroken and disgusted. “Or would killing him now save you the trouble of prying him out of me later when you and Agnus come looking for our corpses?”  


Stunned, Kassia let go of her and stepped back. “I care about you, Mira—”  


“I know why Agnus chose you, Kassia.” Miranda eased herself onto her feet. “Your minds are the same. Demon studies are not merely a hobby for you, but an obsession.” She drew herself up straight, kept one protective hand on her occupied womb, and remembered the power and love that had created the baby nestled inside her. “You will never touch my son.”  


“Miranda, don’t be a fool!”  


“I’ll endure the exile.” She cradled her womb and felt her baby nudge against her hands as if to lend her strength. “Anything to protect him.”  


“What do you think you can you do?” Kassia pleaded, exasperated.  


“What I’ve always done.” She still had time before the pregnancy became too obvious and she was banned from the Order’s libraries. “I’ll study.”  


“Mira, I want to help you—!”  


“You already have, Kassia, and I thank you.” Miranda went to the door of the lab and glanced back at her dear friend for the last time. “But I just can’t trust you anymore.”

~ A FEW WEEKS LATER ~

Every day she feared Kassia might betray her. Every day she wondered if the Order suspected dangerously accurate reasons for why she had suddenly disappeared from her librarian duties. Every day she longed for Vergil.  


Fortuna Castle was now her home, and every day she prepared for the birth according to her research. Food was obtainable—albeit in meager amounts—from various local charities, and the loneliness often brought her to tears, but her son continued to grow and encourage her with every little movement inside her.  


Standing in the sand, alone on the seashore and wrapped in a thick cloak, Miranda cradled her belly—now obviously swollen with Vergil’s son—as she gazed out over the moonlit waves. There was no distinction between the water of the sea and the heavy tears in her eyes.  


“Your father will return.” Stroking her womb, she felt a gentle push in response. A hopeful laugh bubbled up. “One day you will meet him. I know it.”


	15. Legacy (Mission 15)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love." - William Blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end 💔  
> ***  
> ...but every ending is a new beginning 💙  
> ***  
> Thank you so much for reading! 😁🙏🏻 Please check out my "behind the scenes" thoughts, theories, and research on _Heaven's High Bower_ immediately following the epilogue!  
> ***  
> I have more Devil May Cry fan fiction in the works, including two alternate universe pieces as well as my own Devil May Cry 6! 😄  
> ***  
> An AU vignette will post September 26, 2020 (PST). Same universe (where Dante will break canon) as my story "Milk and Pizza." Thank you!

~THREE MONTHS LATER~

The full moon burned like white fire, hanging before him like a mirror of memories. The rain fell like cold bullets. Tonight was a beautiful black night, but Vergil had fallen from heaven’s high bower. No. Not fallen. Departed. Departed but with the motivation to return.  
The Yamato, sheathed in leather fashioned from the hides of Geryon’s feral descendants, stood erect beneath Vergil’s gloved palms, waiting patiently like its bearer for the impending duel. He reached into his left glove and drew out a single plumeria blossom. The petals were wrinkled and long wilted, but the scent, now sacred to him, invoked lovely images of Miranda that made him ache. Hallucinations hovered on the edges of his sanity.  


The silken beauty of her hair.  


The melodious chime of her laughter.  


The angelic radiance of her smile.  


The naked love in her gaze.  


_Soon, Miranda._ He lifted his eyes to the moon. _We will be together again._  


At the stony scrape of an indolent stride, Vergil slightly turned his head. The approaching booted footfalls bespoke a vanity not unlike his own. He quickly slipped the flower of his motivation back into his glove, hiding all of Miranda away again, and fixed a firm mask of steely resolve over his face before greeting his twin brother.  


“You showed up,” he remarked, flat and unsurprised.  


A rush of restlessness consumed him, but he concealed it behind the dispassionate mask. All he needed was Dante’s half of their mother’s amulet.  


_It will be fun to fight him again, too._  


How many times had they fought? It was hard to say. Was it brotherly bonding or sadistic rivalry? Perhaps the line was blurred. 

~ MEANWHILE ~

Footsteps.  


Miranda’s heart leapt into her throat, aching with a sudden burst of hope. The opening of a winter-clad flower at the first warm stroke of spring.  


_Vergil!_  


She wanted to run to him, but the bulk of her womb denied her any measure of haste. So she waited in the Master’s Chamber where she spent most of her time nesting and studying the stack of childbirth books she’d gradually acquired over the course of her pregnancy.  


The doors to the chamber opened.  


Miranda gasped, suddenly fearful of what Vergil might think of their having a son. Would he be nervous? Reluctant? Sparda forbid he be indifferent!  


_No! Vergil will be so proud. Our son is already strong._  


“Mira!”  


Miranda’s heart sank like a stone to the depths of her knotted stomach. Instantly her hands flew to her womb to shield her son.  


“No…” she breathed, dread and disappointment rising to strike her down. _Vergil, where are you!_ “No!”  


Kassia came further into the chamber, her hands lifted as if offering a truce. “Mira, I came alone—”  


“Stay away from me!” Miranda shouted, stepping back. “You will not kill my baby!”  


Kassia shook her head, her face crumpling in regret and sympathy. “I’m not here to hurt him. I promise.”  


“I don’t believe you!” Miranda sobbed, stumbling against the bedpost. In her distress, she nearly fell.  


Kassia rushed to assist her. Miranda flailed at her as if she were being brutally assaulted.  


“I won’t let you take my son to Agnus!” she cried, overwrought.  


“Mira, I just want to help you!”  


The baby gave a powerful lunge inside Miranda. Gasping, she gripped the edge of the bed. Warm, blackish fluid spilled down her legs. At the sight of the strange dark liquid splashing at her feet, her heart bounded into her mouth. Of course none of the books she had studied in the last three months provided answers or methods for delivering a devil-bred child.  


“Your heightened emotions have induced you,” Kassia explained gently, taking her friend by the shoulders. “Just breathe, Mira.” Her voice was perfectly calm. “Breathe.”  


Vergil’s son flailed within Miranda. With a moan, she clutched at her protruding belly with both hands as the first contraction came. It sent her to her knees.  


_Contractions already?_ Kassia, baffled but trying to suppress it, helped Miranda back onto her feet. _They’re coming too fast!_  


Remembering to breathe, Miranda clumsily climbed onto the bed where she and Vergil had spent many a precious hour. The second contraction fell upon her, abnormally swift and fierce. The child was keenly eager to leave the womb and meet the world.  


Groaning, Miranda lay back against the pillows. In the brief respite, Kassia helped her out of her dress. The jagged black lines covered her belly and spread over her breasts, as far as her throat. She continued to focus her breathing. The baby wriggled for freedom, wild and determined.  


A broken smile flickered on Miranda’s mouth. _Motivated…_  


The smile was wiped away as another contraction overwhelmed her. Miranda spread her raised knees, panting, trying to remember what she’d studied in preparation for this moment.  


“Breathe,” Kassia encouraged as she hurried to the foot of the bed. Kassia bit her lip. Miranda was not yet well dilated, yet the child moved with such energy. “Do not push too fast or too hard—”  


“Leave me!” Miranda screamed, sweating and panting.  


“You need my help, Mira!” Kassia insisted, and rummaged in her case for supplies.  


“No! Don’t touch me! Don’t give me anything!”  


Kassia ignored her plea and opened a vial of pale cream. “This should ease the crowning.”  


Vergil’s son was insistent. As Kassia started applying the treatment, the next contraction tore Miranda’s flesh. She screamed as dark blood and black fluid pooled beneath her. It felt as if the child were clawing at the inner walls of her womb. She gripped the blankets, white-knuckled and shaking, her heart an iron bell banging behind her bones. Tears blurred her eyes as she bore down, sweating heavily, bracing for another push.  


Kassia stared wide-eyed, her hands poised to receive, as the baby forced his way through unlike any normal human baby would. This child is powerful.  


The skull ripped Miranda again. Too much blood spread like a shadow. She screamed again, a desperate cry heralding new life. Time was irrelevant, nonexistent, still. Had minutes passed or hours? Months or days?  


_Oh Sparda, give me the strength to bear your grandson!_  


The son of Vergil emerged into the raw autumn air, his little body coated in a dark and slimy caul and smeared in the dangerously deep red blood of his mother. Miranda gasped, relieved, as the child slid free from her womb.  


Kassia took the babe in a black cloth and broke the caul around his face. He immediately wailed. She just stared at the newborn hybrid boy.  


“Give him to me!” Miranda demanded, breathless and pallid as she tried to sit up.  


The babe wriggled and cried. Kassia gawked at him. _He’s perfect._  


“Kassia!”  


Blinking away the astonishment, Kassia delivered the boy into his mother’s waiting, shaking arms.  


Weeping, Miranda pressed her son to her breast. Blackened blood smudged her naked skin. With a soft damp cloth she had prepared, she wiped his face and little ears and tiny chest. His newborn cries broke the unsettling quiet of Fortuna Castle. She kissed his head, rocking him gently back and forth. Joyful tears streamed down her cheeks as she gazed in wonder at Vergil’s flawless son.  


“Strong and handsome,” she whimpered, her smile quivering as the painful ache of Vergil’s absence fell over her again. “You’re already so much like your father.”  


The afterbirth was dispelled without complication. It practically fell out. A rush of dizziness swept over Miranda as she tried to cut the birth cord, which was black and especially tough. She hadn’t the strength, so Kassia cut it for her. Once severed, the cord was thrown into the pitiful fire that gurgled in the hearth. Kassia burned the afterbirth also, ensuring the destruction of evidence that might lead the Order to Miranda’s son.  


Pale and trembling, Miranda struggled to nurse her boy. The birth had demanded every ounce of her stamina. He rooted and grunted for a while until he finally bit into her nipple, chewing between suckles. She winced at his vigorous appetite. She leaned against the mound of pillows and closed her eyes, exhausted.  


_Oh Vergil, please come back!_  


A familiar moon draped a blanket of silvery light over her and her son.  


“Just go, Kassia,” she sighed weakly.  


“Mira, you’re still bleeding.” Kassia searched her case for a few frantic minutes. “I don’t have the supplies nor the knowledge to repair the damage.”  


“Go,” Miranda panted, having energy for only one word.  


Kassia came beside her and dabbed a damp cloth to her friend’s brow. “Don’t move. I’ll fetch a physician.”  


“Don’t come back!” Miranda shouted, tears falling. Her son flinched, falling off her nipple. The wails that echoed pierced her grieving soul.  


Kassia pursed her lips as tears glazed her own eyes. “I will not let you bleed to death!”  


Miranda’s gaze brimmed with such ironclad determination that a chill scuttled under Kassia’s skin. Miranda then turned away and tended to her son. “I’m here, my little sweet,” she whispered. Kassia watched, amazed, as Miranda eased her baby’s fear and got him nursing again.  


“I’ll return with a physician,” Kassia announced with finality. Miranda said nothing as her makeshift midwife packed her things and prepared to leave.  


The boom of the closing of the chamber doors was the sound of Miranda’s fate.  


_I will choose my fate…for your sake…_  


She spent a sacred clutch of time cherishing her baby’s tiny warm body cuddled against her breast. Bliss beyond measure.  


“The son of Vergil must have a powerful name,” she muttered over him, “with significant meaning.”  


Memories played through her mind. Vergil bravely touching her hand during her translation lessons. The first time she tasted his lips. The growls he always made during their cozy play in the late mornings. The subtle pout and splash of pink that came across his face when he tried to hide his heart.  


And she thought of when she and Vergil had come together and created a beautiful baby boy on that beautiful black night.  


_Black…_  


Simple, yet it bore such precious meaning. That moonlit night she would never forget and Vergil’s warrior spirit would forever be preserved in the name of their son.  


“Nero,” she breathed, smiling, awash with tender memories and motherly pride. “Vergil…our son’s name is Nero.”  


Fresh tears slipped down her face and fresh blood pooled between her legs.  


_I’m so sorry, my sweet Nero._

~ SOME HOURS LATER ~

_Dante is all that stands between me and what is rightfully mine! I will not leave without my father’s power! I will not return to Miranda as a failure!_  


Dante rushed for his brother.  


“Leave me and go,” Vergil bade evenly, brandishing the Yamato at his brother’s throat, “if you don’t want to be trapped in the demon world.” The river roared beneath their bloodstained boots, gushing down into the boundless dark. He took a step back. “I’m staying. This place was our father’s home.”  


The heel of his boot slipped from the precipice.  


Dante reached for him. Fear for his brother filled his face. Silent and resolved, Vergil made one last rebuff. The Yamato sliced through Dante’s gloved palm, cleaving leather and flesh. His blood stained the katana’s gleaming edge.  


…and Vergil fell into the abyss.  


The fear turned to sorrow in Dante’s face. For a brief moment Vergil felt regret like a dart between his lungs. Yet motivated he remained.  


_You can’t understand, Dante._  


Clutching his mother’s medallion in one hand and the sword given him by his father in the other, Vergil closed his eyes and let himself plunge into the pit. 

~ MEANWHILE ~

A light rain fell over the overcast evening.  


Clutching her baby boy to her breast, Miranda shambled up the steps to the orphanage. Nero, wrapped in a thick black blanket, whimpered beneath her hooded cloak, hungry. She rested her chin atop his head, her lips pressed tightly together as tears filled her eyes.  


Blood trickled down the inside of her thighs. She had no time to seek help. Every physician was closely connected to the Order. Records were kept. It was too great a risk. There was only time enough to entrust her son to Fortuna’s benevolence. Orphans were the result of slain families or scandal, the latter a rarity but a reality. No child was ever turned away.  


_I don’t matter now. Only Nero matters._  


Miranda stopped halfway up the stairs, lightheaded from blood loss and undernourishment. Peering into her cloak, she gazed at her baby, smiling weakly. He quietly fussed, rooting in an attempt to nurse. She slipped her finger into his right hand. He held on tightly and calmed. The tiny crinkle in his nose smoothed.  


_You even have your father’s adorable frown._  


She pressed a lingering kiss upon his white hair, her lips trembling against the downy softness. “I love you, Nero,” she whispered as tears fell down her cheeks, “with all my heart.”  


Fighting her reluctance, she adjusted her deep hood, approached the door, and knelt before it.  


“Please,” Miranda prayed over him, heartbroken and shaking. “Please take care of my son.” Her voice cracked.  


Nero stirred, fussing louder.  


_Sparda, have mercy on your grandson!_  


Miranda clutched her baby to her breast, loathe to leave him, and begged through tears, “Please!” Biting her lip, she gathered a breath, and then looked upon him one last time.  


“Grow strong, my little sweet.” She pressed one last kiss upon his head, lingering, breathing in his newborn scent, cherishing it.  


Uttering an anguished whimper, Miranda surrendered her son—the son of Vergil—to an uncertain future. Yet it was a greater chance at life than Miranda could give. Once he left his mother’s loving and protective embrace, Nero cried.  


Miranda struggled to take her loving gaze from her baby. Her heart ached to take him up again, his every cry tearing another hole in her heart. “Nero,” she breathed, and tucked a small slip of parchment into his black swaddling blanket. It was a simple supplication: Please care for my sweet little Nero, for I cannot.  


The heartsick young mother rose to her feet. Nero wailed, his face reddening, tiny tongue trembling. The pain of leaving him was the driving of nails through her breast. She lifted her hand to the door, hesitated one last time, and knocked.  


Would they nurture him in kindness? Or would they only care for him out of societal obligation? Would Nero know genuine love?  


With an agonized sob, Miranda fled away, resolved to keep Nero’s parentage as mysterious as possible. Before she vanished into the scuttle of the street, the door opened. Moving behind a nearby tree at the base of the steps, she waited, aching to know her baby would be taken into safety.  


An elderly woman, clad in Fortuna’s religious white and red colors, stepped out and discovered Nero at her feet. Kind wrinkles creased her face. The compassionate smile she gave him brought a wave of relief to Miranda.  


“Oh, such a new little thing, aren’t you?” the woman soothed as she took Nero into her arms. She then pulled out the note Miranda had left. “Nero. Fitting for one so strong. Even your blanket bears the meaning of your name.” Nero’s cries persisted. “You’re all right now. Come, let’s see about finding some milk.”  


Miranda pressed a hand to her swollen breasts, aching to nurse him.  


The door closed, silencing Nero’s wailing, like slitting her throat.  


The rain kept falling, weeping over the devastated mother.  


_I will always love you, my little sweet._  


Miranda sank to her knees and sobbed.

***

Long forsaken, dilapidated and sagging, the old building was on the edge of condemnation. Trailing drops of blood, Miranda carefully ascended the outer spiraling stairway to the top floor. Doors hung off rusty hinges. Cracked windows whistled in the sea breeze.  


She hadn’t the strength for the journey back to Fortuna Castle.  


With a tug, she opened the door of the last apartment. Stepping inside, she closed the door behind her and surveyed the little abode. No decent furniture to speak of save for a couch blanketed in dust and age.  


Miranda collapsed onto the couch, and then fell onto her side, exhausted. Her gaze flittered weakly about. The walls were pockmarked. The floor was splintered and scuffed. The windows overlooked Port Caerula, a lovely view of the ocean. The air was cold and thin.  


A place forgotten.  


Yet she imagined it furnished and loved, a hideaway, cozy and concealed.  


“We could have been a family here,” she whispered into the silence, “tucked away far above the sea.”  


Strength abandoned her, drop by crimson drop. Her eyes blinked slowly as her vision darkened.  


The gentle rain comforted her, clattering against the roof tiles.  


_Come back, my sweet V…_  


Her heartbeat was but a frail patter.  


_Our son is waiting for you…_  


The bleeding ceased and her broken heart struggled no more. 

~ MANY HARD BATTLES LATER ~

“How disgraceful.” The booming voice consumed the dark, close air, thick with ridicule, sovereignty, and triumph. “Son of Sparda.”  


Every breath was tribulation. The living iron roots had skewered one of Vergil’s lungs. Blood masked his face, gathering at the edge of his slack jaw. The once-radiant blue of his coat was now mired in his own blood, drenched and torn and tattered. His left arm was numb, but in his right hand he grasped the Yamato in blood-slicked fingers.  


Only what remained of the Yamato.  


_I…won’t…lose…_  


Vergil coughed. Blood splattered out between his parted lips. His fingers loosened on the Yamato’s hilt. He grimaced, fighting to tighten his grasp.  


The last piece of his father’s gift slipped from his trembling hand.  


Mundus boasted in the corrupted muck of his vanity.  


“I can still fight,” Vergil rasped, raising his gaze to the dethroned emperor.  


As Mundus gathered Vergil’s battered and broken body in his colossal hands, Vergil reached in vain as the Yamato disappeared into the swirling light of the portal below. Thick, malodorous tentacles stormed and coiled around him, binding him to the malevolent emperor’s will.  


Vergil grasped for freedom.  


Futile.  


“The heart is a tumor of weakness,” Mundus thundered. Hot, suffocating power billowed around him and filled the ruined throne room. “So let me rid you of it.”  


_Miranda… I’m sorry…_  


Pain and defeat screamed inside Vergil, reminding him that his heart was still there, holding on, still fighting.  


_I love you, sweet V._  


“You need neither ego nor memories.” Mundus grinned as he took pleasure in mutilating the motivated son of Sparda.  


_No! I don’t want to forget! MIRANDA!_  


The fear within him exploded, nuclear and dominating. Vergil screamed as the darkness devoured him.

~ EPILOGUE ~

Heaving, Nero stepped forth out of the shaft of blinding light, grasping the newly restored Yamato.  


“I’ll endure the exile.” His dual-layered voice echoed throughout the wrecked laboratory.  


His demonic right arm tingled and thrummed with astounding power, a power that resonated with his very soul, feeding his strength. A bolt of lightning in his bones. His aura pulsed and surged in blue flame-like light, rising around him. A great looming phantom of a winged demon towered behind him, matching his every movement like a monstrous shadow or reflection. It was as if his capability had been dormant, shackled, until now, the next level woken by this incredible weapon that fit perfectly in his clawed hand. Agnus’s entire laboratory trembled at his mercy.  


“Anything…to protect her!”

***

Gasping awake, Vergil clutched at his heart, his every breath a rasp of brittle paper. The demon within him sprawled limp and languid. Defeated. Like an oily caul, the smoky darkness swathed him. A familiar hum of power rippled through him. He clenched his left hand and found it empty of…  


The Yamato.  


He remembered now.  


Groaning, he climbed to his feet, his body as heavy as stone. As his eyes adjusted, a clouded bloody sky eased into view overhead. Blinking away the haze, he squinted into the dismal distance.  


_Without power… I cannot protect…_  


No stars.  


No moon.  


Alone.  


Powerless.  


_I’ll take it back!_  


Clenching his fists, Vergil summoned his motivation once again and stumbled forward, following the echo of his long lost power.  


The very power awakening in his son.  
***  
***  
***  
***  
BEHIND THE SCENES - THOUGHTS, THEORIES, AND RESEARCH -  


Miranda calls Nero “little sweet” and “my sweet Nero,” in reference to “sweet V,” her pet name for Vergil. 

In Mission 15, I am intentionally specific about which of Nero’s hands grasp Miranda’s finger. It is his right hand, which will one day become his devil bringer arm. 

For the final mission, I chose to use William Blake’s “divine love” quote in the Summary to echo the love and humanity Vergil had with Miranda. By this quote, Vergil finally confesses to Miranda that he loves her (Mission 10). Mission 10 is the full flowering of their love, when Vergil finally lets his humanity have control, and it is a beautiful thing. The love they made resulted in a darling powerful boy who will carry that same “true power” of love and one day save his father. I like to think that Vergil saw Nero’s mother—her heart—in Nero that day atop the qliphoth. He remembers that night from “a long time ago.” 

The first thing Miranda tells Vergil when she meets him is to “leave,” but by the end she is begging him to “stay.” 😭 

When Miranda says over Nero “Grow strong…” it is an intended echo of the line “I know they will grow strong” in Eva’s lullaby “Seeds of Love,” which is about her own babies, Dante and Vergil. 

Originally I did not want Kassia to return in Mission 15. After threatening to kill Nero I didn't want anything more to do with her! However, my beta reader suggested I bring her back as a redeemable character, and I am glad she did because it provided even more feels to Mission 15! Thanks, Chiharu-chin! 

The old apartment where Miranda dies is the very apartment where she and Vergil and Nero live “tucked away far above the sea” in my AU series Gates of Paradise (Milk and Pizza). 

The full moon in Devil May Cry 3 and 4 provides a certain mood, and so I wanted to emphasize that in this novella. William Blake’s poem “Night” was absolutely perfect. Vergil standing so solemnly beneath the full moon in both games is such a beautiful, contemplative image that I felt it was perfect for a romance story. Despite his demonic heritage, I believe Vergil experienced a piece of “heaven in a wildflower,” and the moon is “like a flower in Heaven’s high bower.” It all connects 😉 

I am partial to a dramatic birth scene, so the prospect of writing the birth of a demon-human hybrid baby was quite thrilling because I would be able to take artistic liberty with what that might be like for Nero’s mother. The creepy black veins and black amniotic mucus were ideas I’ve had for months, before I wrote _Heaven’s High Bower_. I wanted visuals of the effects of a supernatural pregnancy. I love writing birth scenes because of the incredibly high tension it offers. The baby is in trouble, the mother is hysterical, either of them could die, there’s blood, there’s screaming, there’s tension…! Nero’s birth allowed me to utilize all of these elements and load it with all kinds of punchy feels. 

I have not read the Devil May Cry 4 novel, but I am aware of the canonical fact that Nero was found alone outside the orphanage, wrapped in a black blanket. Thus he was named “Nero,” meaning “black.” One of my earlier drafts of Mission 15 actually had Miranda personally giving Nero to the orphanage caretaker and telling the caretaker Nero’s name. I just could not bear the idea that Nero’s mother had nothing to do with naming her baby (perhaps there are not-so-painful possibilities for this), but I also wanted to stay as close to canon as possible. This is always my overarching goal besides keeping everyone in character according to the games. So I added the detail about the note tucked into Nero’s blanket and a line of dialogue that mentions the blanket still having something to do with his naming, albeit loosely. Since the novel is only officially available in Japan and I cannot read Japanese, I relied upon my beta reader who has read the novel summary in the broken English translation. Thank you, Chiharu-chin, for everything! 💖 

“Nero” can mean “black,” but it also means “wise warrior,” so I felt this was even more fitting to mention in my novella since Nero is the son of a powerful and honorable warrior. Plus, he has the wisdom to see past the foolish mistakes of his family and end the sibling rivalry between his father and uncle. Other meanings of “Nero” include “strong,” “POWERFUL,” and “vigorous.” Most fitting, yes? 😄 Well done, Itsuno-san and team! 

Fun facts about plumeria flowers that are symbolized in Miranda — Wikipedia — 🌺They are most fragrant at night, considered sacred, and have been studied for medicinal value 🌺In Maya culture, they are associated with life and fertility and female sexuality 🌺In Bengali culture, they are associated with death 🌺In East African culture, they are sometimes mentioned in love poems 🌺In South and Southeast Asian folk beliefs, they provide shelter to demons ❤️💙 The best and craziest part is that I didn’t know any of this about plumeria until months after I decided to use the idea for Miranda! Destiny 😁 

I always strive to give credit where credit is due. I novelized and embellished a few scenes from Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening, Devil May Cry 4, Visions of V, and borrowed a couple lines from Devil May Cry 5. 

The theme of protection/love is one of the primary themes of the Devil May Cry series. Therefore I wrote _Heaven’s High Bower_ with this dual theme at the forefront of my mind. Vergil has suffered loneliness and—what he perceives to be—weakness since the death of his mother, and I will argue that he cannot forgive himself for having failed to protect his mother. “Without power you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself.” This single line is CRUCIAL to understanding Vergil and his famous motivation. It makes the most sense to me that his “need” for more power has to do with his own personal shortcomings, guilt, and failure, and his attempts at compensating for it all. Vergil needs to prove himself to his brother and to himself, and he believes power is the key. 

Nero and Vergil are extraordinarily similar, and I’m not just talking about those killer dimples and blue Devil Triggers. This is no coincidence. Hideaki Itsuno, director of Devil May Cry 3, 4, and 5, intentionally did this. Therefore, I believe we can glean what Nero’s mother meant to Vergil by looking at how much Kyrie means to Nero. Nero was willing to become a demon if it meant protecting Kyrie, to become a monster if it meant he could gain the power to protect the one he loved. So Nero “needed” more power too! This was a huge inspiration to me for how I wrote _Heaven’s High Bower_ and the reason why I featured Devil May Cry 4 Nero in the Epilogue. By knowing Nero, we can understand Vergil. If Nero and Vergil are so similar in almost every other way, why would they be different in how they love their ladies? The only difference is that Nero had Credo and Kyrie to guide and love him while growing up while Vergil—after Eva’s death—did not have such a support system. All he had to rely on was the demonic power Sparda passed on to him. Vergil cannot let himself be perceived as weak. I think he saw his self-worth in the measure of his power. If he proves to be more powerful than Dante, he can defeat his insecurity. Hence the line I gave Vergil in Mission 13— _Without power, I am nothing._

I do not hang out in the Devil May Cry fandom, but I do happen upon things from time to time. Apparently a popular theory is that Nero’s mother was just a loose woman. First of all, I don’t understand why people tend to be so quick to accept such a theory. Second of all, I’ve heard that the Devil May Cry 4 novel claims through the mouths of other bratty orphanage children that she was a “whore,” but to me that just sounds like crass bullying being thrown at the strange white-haired boy who likely stood out from all the rest of the kids and was an easy target for teasing. I can imagine young Nero punching one of them in response 😝 If Nero was found alone, who’s to say his mother did not love him or did not love Vergil? Additionally, Fortuna is obviously a religious community—albeit corrupt in leadership when you dig to the deeper layers—and the brief glimpse we receive of Nero’s mother exudes curiosity and warmth and mystery, not any kind of lechery or base intent. For crying out loud, the girl is essentially leaving CHURCH when Vergil walks by her. Not to mention they are both teenagers full of hormones despite any rules. I dare anyone to argue that one! 😜 Let’s also remember that Vergil, though misguided, is a man of honor. Dante says it of him in Devil May Cry [1], and in Devil May Cry 5 Vergil refuses to fight Dante when Dante is too weak to put up a worthy showdown. Therefore, Vergil would NEVER take advantage of a woman either. It would be against his honor. The Devil May Cry 3 manga—which I have read—has a short scene revealing Vergil’s opinion of loose women: he finds them dishonorable and repulsive. Furthermore, Vergil is on a mission in Fortuna, focused on investigating the Order of the Sword or retrieving information therein. The last thing on his mind is trying to hook up with some random girl for a fun time. If anything, that is more Dante’s style. I believe meeting Nero’s mother was a complete and utter curveball, totally unexpected, but Vergil is a stubborn one and so left Fortuna to finish what he started (which is admirable, though foolish in his situation), and his plan, as we gamers know, goes horribly awry. 😭 If anyone has any say on the matter it is the man himself Dan Southworth, and he says Nero’s mother was “significant” to Vergil, and I am not alone in claiming that there is plenty of evidence to support this. 

***

***Songs for Vergil and Miranda ***  


[Reach by Skillet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIvnY3VeLqo)  
Where are you? I can’t find you  
Broke in two, left behind you  
Reach for me (reach for me)  
I’m falling (I’m falling)  
Promise me you’re never leaving  
I’m still here, broken, bleeding  
Reach for me (reach for me)  
I’m falling deep  
Reach for me  


***

[Immortal by Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0271yZzmLQ)  
But if the earth ends in fire  
And the seas are frozen in time  
There’ll be just one survivor  
The memory that I was yours and you were mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 🙏🏻 I enjoyed creating this unexpected project immensely, and I truly hope you enjoyed the journey of reading. ❤️ I hope you will read more of my Devil May Cry fan fiction in the future! 😊 I will be continuing my alternate universe series, now entitled Gates of Paradise, which so far features my short story Milk and Pizza here on AO3. 🍼 Dante will break canon at the end of Devil May Cry 3 (writing in progress)! 🌟 Vergil does not fall into Hell and learns how to be a husband and father! 💙 Miranda does not die and she gets to be a nurturing wife and mother! 🌺 Dante will be a fun uncle and still annoy his brother! 😆 Demons and danger still hunt the Spardas, though! 😯 I am off to write more for you 😎 Ever wonder what it might be like if Eva never died, Sparda got to raise his badass boys, and Vergil and Miranda were high school sweethearts? 😉 Thank you so much, and please don’t be shy about leaving a comment or question! 🙂 *bows*


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